THE PIANO LESSON to Make World Premiere at Telluride Film Festival

Malcolm Washington's film adaptation of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson will have its world premiere screening this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival, Deadline reports. The movie will receive a limited theatrical release on November 8 and be available to stream on Netflix on November 22.

Ahead of the screening, Washington discussed the film with Deadline's Baz Bamigboye, revealing some of the inspirations for the project and the familiar connections he observed along the way. The Piano Lesson is a familiar tale and he recalled looking at old photos of his own North Carolina family: “I’m looking at them, seeing myself. I look at my grandmother’s face, and I see my sister’s face, I see my mother’s face, and here I am talking to you about a movie that I’ve gotten to make to honor them," he said to Bamigboye. He added that his mother, a classically trained piano player, was at the forefront of his mind as he told this story that features a piano at its center: "she was very much at the center of this adaptation for me, because she was somebody that the piano gave a lot of opportunity to." Read the full interview at Deadline.

The Piano Lesson is directed and co-written by Washington in his feature directorial debut. From Oscar-nominated producers Denzel Washington and Todd Black, and features an all-star cast including Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu with Danielle Deadwyler, and Corey Hawkins. 

Potts, John David Washington, Fisher, and Jackson all reprise their roles from the 2022 Broadway revival, which broke records becoming the highest-grossing revival of a play on Broadway.

Part of Wilson's American Century Cycle, the original production of the play premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1987, also starring Samuel L. Jackson. In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama, The Piano Lesson won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, the Peabody Award, and was nominated for the 1990 Tony Award for Best Play. 

Official Synopsis

 A battle is brewing in the Charles Household. At the center stands a prized heirloom piano tearing two siblings apart. On one side, a brother (John David Washington) plans to build the family fortune by selling it. On the other, a sister (Danielle Deadwyler) will go to any lengths to hold onto the sole vestige of the family’s heritage.  Their uncle (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to mediate,  but even he can’t hold back the ghosts of the past.

Adapted from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, THE PIANO LESSON explores the intergenerational dynamics of identity, resilience and transcendence - revealing startling truths about how we perceive the past and who gets to define our legacy.

About the Telluride Film Festival

The Telluride Film Festival is a film festival taking place every Labor Day weekend in the tiny mountain village of Telluride, Colorado. However, is more than a picture show. It is Tributes to luminaries who've propelled the medium forward; it is candid discussions with a film’s creator or the historian who champions it; it is discovering that the person in line behind you made the film you just enjoyed; it is engaging in lively debate with every manner of film lover in the summer sun of a Colorado afternoon, always minutes away from a new exhibition. Our audiences were the first in the world to laugh with JUNO, to observe THE LIVES OF OTHERS, to visit BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, to learn the secret of THE CRYING GAME, to experience BLUE VELVET, and to witness THE CIVIL WAR. We resurrected the silent epic NAPOLEON, and highlighted the genius of animator Chuck Jones.