The New York film critic Betsy Sharkey wrote an excellent piece on filmmaker Lee Daniels and his film – Precious – based on author Sapphire’s Push novel. Betsy Sharkey interviews Lee Daniels before he jets out to the Toronto International Film Festival [TIFF] press conference and premiere of Precious on Sunday, September 13. The introspective piece is featured in Los Angeles Times Presents The Envelope and you can read the complete interview @ theenvelope.latimes.com.
Smokewood Entertainment Group
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire screens at Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, September 13 @ 9:30pm in Roy Thomson Hall and on Monday, September 14 @ 12:30pm in Winter Garden Theater. To see TIFF’s description and press coverage on Precious, visit tiff.net and tiff.net/press.
Producers Gary Magness and Sarah Siegel-Magness’ Smokewood Entertainment Group’s Precious hits theaters on Friday, November 6.
I’ve known about author Sapphire [Ramona Lofton]’s Push since 1999 when she first appeared on The Charlie Rose Show and have wanted to read her book since. Then the 1996 published Push was later optioned for adaptation, began shooting on 10/24/2007 and screened at 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it won three awards: the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the Special Jury Prize for Acting (Mo’Nique).
Push was retitled as Precious when Lionsgate purchased director Lee Daniels’ film @ Sundance with Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry presenting the incredible film. And finally today, the trailer is here. So click the image [below] to view the full trailer.
Precious is about Clareece “Precious” Jones – an overweight, illiterate African-American teenager in Harlem in 1987. Just as she’s about to give birth to her second child, Jones is accepted into an alternative school where a teacher helps her find a new path in her life.
Precious rolls into theaters on Friday, November 6.
Update: I’ve embed the trailer and official synopsis: Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece Precious Jones, a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. Precious doesn’t know the meaning of “alternative”, but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain, Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.
Reserve Result. 