Kemba 'Nobody I Can Trust' by Tomson Tee
It's all sweetness and light in Kemba's world, as he makes his way to work at the diner every day. Only thing is, black men are always getting arrested...
Describing his video as 'Get Out meets Groundhog Day', Tomson Tee has created a brilliantly chilling satire on race relations in the USA, for Nobody I Can Trust.
Kemba plays an initially happy-go-lucky worker in an aggressively retro-Americana suburb. We witness a loop of the same three scenes that make up his day-to-day routine. And each day it starts with a different African-American person getting arrested, on Kemba's walk to work.
And as more and more black men get locked away by increasingly aggressive cops, Kemba begins to notice the town’s attitude toward him shifting eerily, the mood in the diner changing. Things start to get ugly.
Tomson Tee's crucial eye for detail serves the narrative so well, using a style employed by B movies and TV shows from the 50s and 60s, and building a surreal nightmare that feels increasingly plausible.
Entirely plausible in fact, as the truth about the rise of racism in Trump's America is repeatedly borne out by events.
Credits
Director | Tomson Tee |
Producer | Nadine Lübbeling |
Production Company | Ghost Robot |
Executive Producer | Mark De Pace |
Executive Producer | Zach Mortensen |
Production Manager | Skyler Tapley |
1st AD | Carlos Zozaya |
Director of Photography | Cory Fraiman-lott |
Focus Puller | Brian Hall |
Gaffer | Laura Hilliard |
Art Director | Jay Laforest |
Wardrobe | Marc Anthony George |
Make-up | Jade Stanton |
Editor | Tomson Tee |
Colourist | Mary Perrino |
Label | Republic Records |
Other credits | Cast: Melvin Mogoli, Chalan Cunningham, Jake Parisse, Elliot “lee" Cowart, Mikey Cris, Skye Volkening-Jeffrey, Charli Ouda, Mino Jones, Derrick T. Lewis, David Ventura, Trent Cox, Taylor Owens |
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