
Eve’s Bayou
Director: Kasi Lemmons Run Time: 109 min. Release Year: 1997
Starring: Debbi Morgan, Jurnee Smollett, Lynn Whitfield, Meagan Good, Samuel L. Jackson
Kasi Lemmons first wrote the screenplay in 1993, inspired by her family’s history in Louisiana. Lemmons first found success as an actor, appearing in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, ‘School Daze’, ‘Candyman’, and ‘Fear of a Black Hat’. After struggling to find financing for this film, she produced a short film as a proof-of-concept, and later caught the eye of Samuel L. Jackson, who joined the film as a producer and stars as the family patriarch Dr. Louis Batiste. Lemmons would go onto direct ‘Talk to Me’, ‘Harriet’, and ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’.
Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve’s Bayou, 1962, as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they’ve kept and the betrayals they’ve endured.
“It’s a stunning coming-of-age tale (an exceedingly rare example of one that privileges the experience of young black girls); an honest, hyperspecific portrait of black life in rural Louisiana; and one of the greatest writer-director debuts in American cinematic history.” ~ Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture