Directed by Charles Burnett • Drama • With Everett Silas, Jessie Holmes, Gaye Shannon-Burnett, Ronnie Bell • 1983 • 86 minutes
In 1983, after many long months of shooting, Charles Burnett sent his rough-cut of My Brother’s Wedding to his producers. Ignoring his request to finish the editing of the film, the producers rushed it to a New York festival screening, where it received a mixed review from the New York Times. With distributors scared off, My Brother's Wedding was tragically never released. Film critic Armond White called this “a catastrophic blow to the development of American popular culture.”
Now, following a beautiful restoration by the Pacific Film Archive and a beautifully-accomplished digital re-edit by the director, My Brother's Wedding is an eye-opening revelation—it is wise, funny, heartbreaking and timeless.
Pierce Mundy works at his parents' South Central dry cleaners with no prospects for the future and his childhood buddies in prison or dead. With his best friend just getting out of jail and his brother busy planning a wedding to a snooty upper-middle-class black woman, Pierce navigates his conflicting obligations while trying to figure out what he really wants in life.
My Brother’s Wedding has been restored by the Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley.
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