Kemba 'Nobody I Can Trust' by Tomson Tee
David Knight - 29th July 2019
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.
David Knight - 29th July 2019
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Credits
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Production/Creative
- 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
Camera
- Director of Photography
- Cory Fraiman-lott
- Focus Puller
- Brian Hall
Lighting/Grip
- Gaffer
- Laura Hilliard
Art
- Art Director
- Jay Laforest
Wardrobe
- Make-up
- Jade Stanton
- Wardrobe
- Marc Anthony George
Editorial
- Editor
- Tomson Tee
Grading
- Colourist
- Mary Perrino
Commission
- 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
David Knight - 29th July 2019