He's already an accomplished (and Oscar-winning) actor, but Daniel Kaluuya is adding to his skillset, making his directorial debut alongside Kibwe Tavares on The Kitchen, which has now been announced as the Closing Night film of this year's BFI London Film Festival.
The film, written by Kaluuya and Joe Murtagh, is set in a dystopian London, where the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only The Kitchen remains, a community that refuses to move out of the place they call home.
This is where we meet a solitary Izi (Kane Robinson), living here by necessity and desperately trying to find a way out, and a 12-year-old Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them.
"We both grew up in London, and The Kitchen is a love letter to our city, so it's a true honour to premiere it here, in our hometown, on the closing night of BFI's London Film Festival," say Tavares and Kaluuya. "Starting a decade ago as a workshop in a local Barbershop, the film's journey from script to screen has been a continued collaboration between us, and the community of cast and crew that came to make up our 'Kitchen,' including our two amazing leads Kane Robinson and Jedaiah Bannerman whose performances anchor the heart of our story. Together we have aimed to make something fresh, thoughtful and cinematic – an allegory and homage to the residents of 'The Kitchen' in every city in the world."
The Kitchen will receive its World Premiere on Sunday 15 October at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, ahead of its release into UK cinemas and subsequent launch on Netflix.
As for the BFI London Film Festival, the 67th event runs between 4 October and 15 October this year, with tickets on sale from 12 September.