PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED: SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
Our Previously Unreleased program brings films to our cinema that have garnered acclaim at film festivals worldwide, but for some reason weren’t released in the national theaters.
Lakeith Stanfield plays a black call-centre worker whose fortunes improve when he adopts a ‘white voice’ in Boots Riley’s cheerfully anarchic satire. Fearlessly ambitious, scathingly funny, and thoroughly original, Sorry to Bother You loudly heralds the arrival of a fresh filmmaking talent.
In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, black telemarketer Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) discovers a magical key to professional success, which propels him into a macabre universe of “powercalling” that leads to material glory. But the upswing in Cassius’ career raises serious red flags with his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a performance artist and minimum-wage striver who’s secretly part of a Banksy-style activist collective. As his friends and co-workers organize in protest of corporate oppression, Cassius falls under the spell of his company’s cocaine-snorting CEO Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), who offers him a salary beyond his wildest dreams.
