For playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who identifies himself as a “super fan” who aims to amplify the things he loves on the big screen, the decision to adapt Octavia Butler’s “Kindred” was “instantaneous” after a 2010 reread of the beloved sci-fi novel sparked a vision of a TV adaptation.
“Kindred” follows Dana (Mallori Johnson), an aspiring TV writer who moves to Los Angeles and sparks a relationship with a waiter named Kevin (Micah Stock) after a family reunion with her aunt and uncle goes south. Amid her personal turmoil, Dana begins to question her sanity when she is violently pulled back in time to a 19th-century plantation.