Akilla’s Escape made its debut during the Toronto International Film Festival this week. 

Akilla Brown (Saul Williams) is a marijuana dealer in the middle of a violent robbery.  Somehow he manages to make it out alive and captures one of the thieves, Sheppard (Thamela Mpulmwana). Akilla finds out Sheppard’s gang has ties with the Garrison Army, the same crime organization he was a part of as a kid. He obliges to help Sheppard while at the same time confronts his own traumatic origins. 

Take a glimpse of the promo clip below: 

https://youtu.be/oyTuUoT8pTU

This is Charles Officer second time debuting a film at the Toronto International Film Festival. Officer introduced the film, Nurse.Fight.Boy at the TIFF 2008 and earned the lead to ten Canadian Screen Award nominations. He is also known for writing and directing documentaries like Mighty Jerome and Invisible Essence’ The Little Prince. As well as television series such as 21 Thunder on Netflix/CBC and Coroner on CBS this year. 

Saul Williams is a full box of talent. He’s an actor, as well as a writer, poet, rapper and songwriter. He is a graduate of Morehouse College for his B.A. in Philosophy and earned his Masters in Acting at NYU. Williams has a feature role in the films K-Pak and Slam.

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Thamela Mpulmwana is a Canadian actor known for playing young T’Kuvma in the Star Trek: Discovery series on CBS. He has made appearances in other television shows series like Creeped Out on Netflix and Rogue. Also adding international projects like the French film, The Warrior and the Savior. 

I had an interesting Zoom conversation with part of the cast, Saul Williams, Thamela Mpulmwana and writer/director Charles Officer. They discuss the storyline and their experience in the film. Williams shares a little bit about being part of the soundtrack.

Source: LRM Online Exclusive