STRANGER THAN FICTION

It was a viral Twitter thread that Janicza Bravo turned into cinema. Courtney Thompson chats to the writer and director about using comedy to explore tragedy and validating the voices of Black women

- Courtney Thompson

In October 2015, the internet congregated around the bonfire to listen to a story that the author deemed “kind of long but full of suspense”. She wasn’t wrong. In a now-infamous 140-plus tweet thread, A’Ziah “Zola” Wells King recounted her experience of befriending a white woman who lured her into a sinister weekend of lies, violence and sex-trafficking. King thought Jessica was a stripper like her, but she soon discovered she was a sex worker with a homicidal pimp who had plans for King, too. She escaped, lived to tweet the tale, and the thread went viral. “Drama, humour, action, suspense, character development. She can write!” tweeted Selma director Ava DuVernay.

It was unanimous: this needed to be a film. The rights to produce and direct were originally secured by James Franco, but when that project fell through (who wants to see a white man’s interpretation of a Black woman’s story?), Janicza Bravo, 40, got to work securing the rights. At the time, she had only directed one feature film, Lemon, but she knew she was the only person for the job. The executives agreed and she was signed on as writer and director (she co-wrote the script with playwright Jeremy O. Harris). Experiencing the final product, titled Zola, it’s hard to imagine anyone else even trying.

“I feel liberated and I think right in this moment today I’m having some degree of a post-mortem,” she tells marie claire over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. The film was finally released in June this year after an initial 18-month delay thanks to COVID. It’s hitting Aussie shores this month and it’s unmissable.