''After America'' is a 2021 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

, written and directed by

Jake Yuzna Jake Yuzna is an American film director, screenwriter, and curator. His debut feature Open was the first American film to win the Teddy Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and in 2005 Yuzna become the youngest recipient of funding from the Na ...

. Created through an open call in 2019, the film follows a group of criminal justice de-escalation workers in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, MN who gather in order to confront the failures they faced in their jobs and personal lives. Employing radical theater workshop techniques devised by Jake Yuzna, this unorthodox group developed a series of interwoven stories based on their real lives. The resulting film merged improvised and devised performances to blur together the usually separate filmmaking traditions of scripted and nonfiction. Looking to collide the stories American's tell themselves with realities they face, the film created a singular portrait of the pain and unrest bubbling under the surface of the American way of life. Completed one month before the unrest following the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

, "After America" is a snapshot of a Minneapolis struggling to move towards a better future that lies after America. Premiering in the Breakouts section of the

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which als ...

in 2021.

Cast

* Yvonne Freese * Theresa McConnon * Daniel Nies * Ahmed Ismail Yusuf * Dan Fox * Eli Anthony * Robert Dante * Sophia Dunn-Walker

References

External links

* 2021 films American drama films 2020s English-language films American LGBT-related films Films about trans men 2021 LGBT-related films LGBT-related drama films Queer-related mass media 2021 drama films 2020s American films {{LGBT-drama-film-stub