“Get Out” and “Judas and the Black Messiah” actor Daniel Kaluuya has made his screenwriting debut on a futuristic, dystopian film for Netflix called “The Kitchen.”
The Oscar winner co-wrote the film along with Joe Murtagh (“Calm With Horses,” “Gangs of London”), and he’s also set to produce for his 59% productions banner. Also producing is Michael Fassbender’s company DMC Film.
“The Kitchen” is set in London, 2044, a future where the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and London’s working classes have been forced to live in temporary accommodation on the outskirts of the city, The Kitchen is the first and the largest of its kind, it’s London’s last village harboring residents that refuse to move on and move out of the place they call home. It’s here we meet Izi, a resident of the kitchen who is desperately trying to find a way out and 12-year-old, Benji, who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they battle to survive in a system that is stacked against them.
Daniel Kaluuya, Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Emmerson are credited with the story idea for the film.
Kibwe Tavares is making his feature directorial debut on “The Kitchen” after being awarded the Sundance Short Film Grand Jury Prize for an animated short called “Robots of Brixton,” and he previously directed Kaluuya in a different Sundance short called “Jonah.”
And starring in “The Kitchen” as the lead Izi is Kane Robinson, an actor and musician best known for “Top Boy,” which just launched Season 2 on Netflix. Also starring is newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman playing co-lead Benji.
The film will shoot on location in London and Paris and be released on Netflix globally in 2023.
“The Kitchen” was developed with the support of Film4 for whom David Kimbangi and Ollie Madden serve as executive producers. Theo Barrowclough will serve as a Co-Producer, while Conor McCaughan and Michael Fassbender will serve as executive producers for DMC Film.
“In 2011, I was in my barbershop and there was a guy boasting about smash and grabs — kids doing million-pound heists in a minute, getting paid £200 to do it. I saw the potential to unlock a unique story door to the inequality, fatherhood, class, joy, resilience, courage, defiance and care of London,” says co-writer/producer Daniel Kaluuya, 59% Productions. “Now, nearly a decade later, Kibwe Tavares, Daniel Emmerson and I are about to start production, immersing ourselves in a dystopian London that interrogates what ‘care’ means, at home and as a society and the dangers in our future if we stay indifferent to everything around us. I feel blessed and honored that my first co-writing film credit is with this inspiring group of creatives, and with the support of Film 4 and Netflix. All of us are excited to watch Kibwe’s incredible, cinematic, electric vision come to life, and to create a moment that audiences want to take with them.”
“’The Kitchen’ is very much a love letter to London, the city that has defined my childhood and ultimately my identity. It’s set in an extreme version of our current world; our characters have little choice but to let the city take over them. Through Benji, a 12 year old in need of care, we explore what we as society lose in the ever changing and shifting patterns of life, of our cities. I’m incredibly honoured to be able to explore a father-son relationship in this setting that is as personal as it is universal. This is a film for my father and all the fathers and sons out there, who are working it out. And to all the communities out there that are trying to take care of each other.” Kibwe Tavares said.
“I’ve had the pleasure of producing for Kibwe over the years and couldn’t be happier to now be supporting Kibwe’s debut feature as part of the Netflix UK Film slate. ‘The Kitchen’ is ambitious, timely and will showcase the great vision he has as a filmmaker, bringing the exciting world-building and textured nuances from Daniel Kaluuya’s debut feature script to our screens,” Fiona Lamptey, Director of UK Features at Netflix, said.
DMC Film’s upcoming slate includes Hayley Squires’ “Gentle In The Bones,” Charlotte Regan’s “Scrapper” and Joe Murtagh’s “Dreadful Ned.” 59% Productions’ upcoming slate includes “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.,” which was acquired by Focus Feature and Monkeypaw out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is currently set for a September 2, 2022, release.
Kaluuya will next be seen in Jordan Peele’s “Nope.”