Join Michael and Đà Nẵng Film Forum for a screening of Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler's 2013 American debut feature.
Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) is 22, lives in Oakland, and is trying to get a few things right. He recently lost his job at a grocery store and hasn't told his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz). He has a bag of weed he means to either sell or get rid of, his mother's birthday dinner to make it to, and his four-year-old daughter Tatiana to pick up. The film follows him through one day, December 31, 2008, as he runs errands, makes promises, and heads into San Francisco with friends to watch the New Year's fireworks.
The film is based on real events. Coogler, who was 26 when he made it, opens with real phone footage shot on a train platform that night, so the audience knows from the first minutes how the day ends. What follows is mostly small and ordinary: Oscar calling his grandmother for a fish fry recipe to help a stranger at the seafood counter, a dog hit by a car at a gas station, a tense prison visit from a year earlier. Jordan, in his first lead role, is funny, loose and quick to anger, and Octavia Spencer is excellent as his mother. It won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Sundance, and Coogler and Jordan have worked together ever since, from Creed and Black Panther to last year's Sinners.
Film Club selections are screened in their original languages and shown with both English and Vietnamese subtitles.
Discussion will follow the screening.
Hosted by Michael.
Screening is for people 18 and older.
Event is free. Please buy things to support REALITY!