‘A Thousand and One’ Had to Acknowledge Colorism In Telling a Black Woman’s Story
Moviegoers have been taught to view films set in New York as “love letters” to the city, no matter how gritty or unflattering they may be. Blame Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, or any member of a long list of other New-York-bred filmmakers capturing the divine chaos and innate romanticism of the Big Apple.
But A Thousand and One, a new family drama set in Harlem—sure to be canonized among legendary New York cinema—resists such optimism about the ever-gentrifying metropolis. In fact, its writer and director A.V. Rockwell has described her debut feature as a “heartbreak letter” to her hometown, which she witnessed rapidly change as a youth.
“I loved the city so deeply that it felt like part of who I am,” the 34-year-old Queens native told IndieWire in January. “I felt like, OK, well, New York must not love me in the same way. I think that awareness of unreciprocated love and that feeling of being erased was a huge motivator for me.”