A Tribute to Chiwetel Ejiofor + “Rob Peace”
(Sloan Science on Screen)

In an acting tour de force, Jay Will plays the talented titular character, a young New Jersey science prodigy headed for the Ivy League, but heavily impacted by his past. While Rob is still an adolescent, his father (another impeccable turn from writer-director Chiwetel Ejiofor) is convicted of homicide and the boy devotes himself to proving his dad’s innocence. As a budding scientist excelling in biophysics, Rob enters Yale, attempting to negotiate this elite new environment alongside his connection to family and community. Based on Peace’s Yale roommate Jeff Hobbs’s bestselling biography, Ejiofor’s exquisite drama details the collision of a life lived under immense pressure. The film features terrific supporting performances by Mary J. Blige as Rob’s caring mother and Mare Winningham as a Yale professor who grants him special lab access.

Tribute

Chiwetel Ejiofor began his acting career as a teenager, appearing in National Youth Theatre productions and going on to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMBDA). He was 19 when he made his screen debut in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997). Among his acting accolades are the 2006 Rising Star BAFTA award, an Academy Award® nomination and BAFTA award for best actor for 12 Years a Slave (2013), a Film Independent Spirit Award for best supporting actor for Talk to Me (2007), and a British Independent Film Award for best actor for Dirty Pretty Things (2002), and the organization’s 2015 Richard Harris Award. In 2007, he won a best actor Olivier Award for the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Othello. His turn to screenwriting and directing began with a pair of shorts, Slapper (2008) and Columbite Tantalite (2013). His first feature, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) was awarded the Sundance Film Festival’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize; an NAACP Image Award for outstanding direction; and the British Independent Film Awards’ Douglas Hickox Award.