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Mahershala Ali‘s first starring film role is finally making its way to the public after being in limbo for nearly 25 years.
Ali plays a revolutionary leader in writer-director Dan Klein’s mockumentary feature Taste the Revolution, with rights currently available for the film. Colin Trevorrow serves as executive producer and plays a small role in the project that is set to premiere at the New Orleans Film Festival on Oct. 19.
Taste the Revolution wrapped filming in 2001 but was shelved following the events of 9/11, with the footage recently being unearthed and edited into the movie that it was intended to become. The story centers on two filmmakers rolling cameras as revolutionary Mac Laslow (Ali) heads up a World Summit that draws an array of young adults looking to change the world and also blow off some steam.
“Every major movement has had a leader,” Ali says in the trailer. “Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Moses.” Later in the footage, Ali’s character exclaims passionately, “I put everything that I have into this revolution.”
Klein marks his feature directorial debut with Taste the Revolution after penning the script back in 1999 with co-writers Trevorrow and Brandon Krueger. Maury Loeb, David Linke and Kevin Linke produce the project, while executive producers include Ali, Klein, Trevorrow and Phil Cohen. Rounding out the cast are Alexander Bilu, Jeremy Dubin, Jen Nails and Jeremy Beiler.
“Shortly after production concluded, 9/11 permanently altered the world, and our movie instantly felt like an out-of-touch period piece, so we buried it,” Klein explains in a statement. “Fast-forward a decade and a half, our lead actor, Mahershala Ali, won his first Oscar for Moonlight and, two years later, his second for Green Book. I shared a clip from the movie with him, and he immediately called to implore us to finish the film.”
Klein met Ali in 1999 when the latter was about to complete NYU’s graduate acting program. Klein had initially envisioned Ali for a smaller role until the budding actor asked to be considered for the lead and nailed the audition.
“When we revisited the footage, we realized it felt even more relevant, 20 years later,” adds Klein, citing Occupy Wall Street and Fyre Festival as relevant cultural touchstones from the ensuing years. “Perhaps the movie will, unfortunately, be perpetually relevant, given that so many young people pass through this phase in life, where they possess little and have an abundance of time and passion, if not the perspective or insight to fully understand the nuances of the causes they champion.”
In the time since filming Taste the Revolution, Ali has appeared in such features as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Predators (2010) and the two-part Hunger Games: Mockingjay (2014 and 2015).
Recent credits include Leave the World Behind, a voice role in the Spider-Verse franchise and co-starring alongside Scarlett Johansson in next year’s Jurassic World Rebirth. Ali has also been attached to the long-gestating Blade film, which Marvel fans are presumably hoping will not take 20-plus years to hit screens.
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