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SFFILM Festival

Morris from America

Directed by Chad Hartigan

USA/Germany | 91

22 Apr
Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 9:00 pm PT

Description

Morris Gentry (Markees Christmas) is no different from a lot of 13-year-old American boys: He loves hip-hop, hates school and is starting to develop a particularly keen interest in girls. The fact that he’s been uprooted from the US to live in Heidelberg, Germany, however—where his widowed dad (The Office‘s Craig Robinson) coaches the local soccer team—makes it hard for him to fit in. Chubby, culturally adrift and hauling around a huge chip on his shoulder, Morris would rather hang out by himself and refine his freestyle-rap skills. But a blonde (Lina Keller), who may have taken a liking to him or may view the African American young man as an accoutrement to her own teenage rebellion, forces Morris to get out of his comfort zone and explore his adopted hometown—for better or worse. Building off the affinity for fish-out-of-water stories that he demonstrated in This Is Martin Bonner (2013), writer-director Chad Hartigan charts Morris’s journey with wit, wisdom and a wistfulness that distinguishes this drama—the winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival—from the coming-of-age pack. But the film’s genuine secret weapons are Robinson, who won Sundance’s US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Individual Performance, and Christmas, a breakout star who handles his character’s stranger-in-a-strange-Deutschland scenario with a spot-on sense of heart and humanity. —David Fear

Director Chad Hartigan

Half Irish, half American and partially raised in Cyprus, Chad Hartigan started studying film and video production when he was in high school in the United States and later earned his BFA in directing from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. His first feature, Luke and Brie Are on a First Date (2008), quickly established him as a director to watch. His second movie, This Is Martin Bonner (2013), won the Sundance Film Festival’s Best of NEXT prize and the Film Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award.

Film Details

Language English, German

Year 2016

Runtime 91

Country USA/Germany

Director Chad Hartigan

Producer Martin Heisler, Adele Romanski, Sara Murphy, Gabriele Simon

Writer Chad Hartigan

Editor Anne Fabini

Cinematographer Sean McElwee

Music Keegan DeWitt

Cast Markees Christmas, Craig Robinson, Carla Juri