“The North Star’s” theatrical release will be managed by production company LuckPig Studios in September 2015, but RLJ Entertainment will also release the movie via UMC, the Urban Movie Channel, created by BET founder Robert L. Johnson. “The North Star” features Eagles linebacker Jeremiah Trotter as Benjamin “Big Ben” Jones, a slave who escapes from a Virginia Plantation along with his friend Moses Hopkins. Jones and Hopkins escaped to freedom in Buckingham Pennsylvania in 1849. The film also stars Thomas C. Bartley Jr., Clifton Powell, Lynn Whitfield, John Diehl, Keith David, Christopher Mann and April Woodall. Writer/Director Thomas K. Phillips hopes that, “‘The North Star’ will create a dialogue with audiences about how people came together for the cause of abolishing slavery; people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds who heard the word of God…” ‘The North Star’ will hit theaters Friday September 18th kicking off at the County Theater and Penn Cinema in Wilmington and then expanding to theaters across the nation throughout the fall. LuckPig Studios will host the film’s premiere Thursday, September 17th at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
In other film news XLrator Media’s “Five Star” became available on DVD on September 1, 2015. It was directored by Keith Miller, writen by Keith Miller and stars James ‘Primo’ Grant and John Diaz.
Synopsis: A member of the notorious Bloods since he was 12 years old – both in the film and in real life — Primo takes John, the son of his slain mentor, under his wing, versing him in the code of the streets. Set in East New York, FIVE STAR blends documentary and fictional storytelling as director Keith Miller carefully avoids worn clichés of gang culture to offer a compelling portrait of two men forced to confront the question of what it really means to be a man.
-Nishat Baig
