@janicza for @vmagazine’s July issue (V131 - FALL PREVIEW 2021). Thanks for such a fun interview & more importantly thank you for blessing us with @zolamovie🖤 [condensed version below, read the full piece in the pages of V131] HEROES: JANICZA BRAVO If you’ve paid any attention to the indie film scene over the past decade, director/screenwriter extraordinaire Janicza Bravo is probably a name you are already familiar with. If not, then there's never been a better time to take notice. Bravo is serving up the spiciest film of the summer with @A24’s @Zolamovie, a stranger-than-fiction saga ripped from the viral 2015 Twitter thread. Starring @taylour as the witty, down-home Zola and @RileyKeough as her villainous frenemy Stefani, the long-awaited flick follows the two as they embark on a chaotic cross-country “hoe trip” gone wrong. Spotlighting the underbelly of Florida’s pole dancing and sex work scene, Zola will leave you at the edge of your seat from start to finish. “I remember reading the tweets in real time, and kept thinking I want to bring [them] to life,” says Bravo, who directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Slave Play’s @Jeremyoharris and @Zolarmoon, the real-life Zola. “[But] I wanted to breathe life into this story while not forgetting my energy, my flavor, and my DNA,” Bravo adds. ...Lacing her unmatched flair for comedic relief with an underlying theme, Bravo tests social boundaries and theories of appropriation with the stereotypical, almost caricature-like nature of the film’s antagonist Stefani. And, knowing that some audiences would sympathize with Keough’s character Stefani no matter how poorly she was presented, Bravo wanted to “play with the attraction and allure of what we decide are black attitudes, black intonations”—and why “society likes [them] on white women and not on Black women.” Despite the lurid excess and hairpin twists, Zola presents us with a message—one that Bravo leaves unwritten. “What you take away from this film is an individual experience,” she says. “And that’s the ultimate gift.” From V131 Editor: @overlyopinionatedblackperson Photography: @yanayatsuk Fashion: @sharonchitrit Makeup: @andremakeup