Stills: Onira Tares Onira Tares Onira Tares James Lewis James Lewis James Lewis James Lewis
Video Interview With Onira Tares
With a dozen other photographers, I showed up to the Magic Johnson Theaters in Crenshaw this afternoon for the 1 p.m. premiere of Grapes on a Vine (produced by Atlanta’s Bottom of the Net productions).
The film’s producer, Sharlene Falls, was also the publicist. She has a speaking part.
Only two people showed up that we could photograph: Onira Tares and James Lewis.
Here are the celebrities promised who never arrived: "Angela Bassett, Vivica A. Fox, Andre Royo, Isaiah Washington, Robert Townsend, Leon, Jazmin Lewis, Gregory Alan Williams, Willie Mac, Aunjaune Ellis, Paula Rittie, Dwayne Boyd, Alfred Robbins."
If a couple of them had showed, I was prepared to make "Grapes" my favorite movie of this year’s Pan African Film Festival.
I asked a photographer from Getty Images for his favorite East African film. He named "Zulu" from 1964.
To pass the time, I got him to recite to me all the countries on the coast of Africa, starting with Morocco and Libya.
While sitting in her car in the parking lot, a white woman photographer got yelled at a group of black teenagers. "Hey you f—ing bitch, get off your phone."
The photographers, all white, huddled like Custer inside the theater’s lobby.
We started leaving at 1:35 p.m.
