From Ryan Cordaro

Origin, the newest film from Ava DuVernay and her first directing effort since her adaptation of her Emmy-winning series When They See Us in 2019, is partly based on the novel Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and Wilkerson’s own journey writing the novel. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (King Richard, If Beale Street Could Talk) plays Wilkerson in the film, where it competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last September.

In the novel, Wilkerson makes comparisons of racism in America to the caste system in India and Nazi Germany, along with how these impacted the lives of those afflicted by these systems. These ideas are also framed as how we could understand what Black people experience in America on a more personal level.

Along with Ellis-Taylor, Origin’s ensemble cast includes Jon Bernthal (Ford v. Ferrari, King Richard), Niecy Nash-Betts (Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Selma), Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring franchise, The Departed), Audra McDonald (Rustin, Beauty and the Beast), Connie Nielsen (Gladiator, Wonder Woman), Blair Underwood (Deep Impact, the upcoming Longlegs), Finn Wittrock (La La Land, The Big Short), and Nick Offerman (The Last of Us, Dumb Money).

Origin is in limited release NOW and gets its wide release on January 19th, 2024 from NEON.

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