Sundance prize-winning filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu has unveiled new details about her forthcoming feature for Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw and Universal that we told you about first in January.
While information on the horror film had been scarce, we now know that it will in some form adapt Jusu’s short film Suicide by Sunlight, which world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019. “My project with Monkeypaw is an expansion of a short film I made called Suicide by Sunlight,” the multi-hyphenate said today at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event, “about day-walking Black vampires who are protected from the sun by their melanin.” It’s unclear how closely Jusu’s new feature will hew to the story of her acclaimed short.
But the original piece, set in a near-future New York City, more specifically tells the story of Valentina (Natalie Paul), who finds it difficult to suppress her bloodlust when a new woman is introduced to her estranged twin daughters.
The feature adaptation is being made under Monkeypaw’s overall deal at Universal. Jusu filmmaker will adapt the screenplay with Fredrica Bailey.
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