Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Cord Jefferson’s satirical comedy “American Fiction” has won the Audience Award for narrative film at the Middleburg Film Festival.
Proving to be a true crowd-pleaser, it’s the third audience prize for the MGM title on the festival circuit following the Toronto and Mill Valley Film Festivals (at the latter it tied with “Rustin”).
Based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, the film follows author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a frustrated novelist who is fed up with the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes.
The film also stars Sterling K. Brown, Erika Alexander, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross, Leslie Uggams and John Ortiz. With SAG-AFTRA still on strike, it’s been writer, director and producer Jefferson doing the promotional and festival rounds for the movie, with the Oscar buzz continuing to grow in these early days of the season.
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