For the opening night of the 24th annual Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival (MVAAFF), “Children of Blood and Bone” director Gina Prince-Bythewood and star Thuso Mbedu shared never-before-seen clips of the forthcoming African fantasy film and dished about making the movie.
“Obviously films like this don’t get made very often,” Prince-Bythewood told “The View’s” Sunny Hostin during the Q&A. “They say 70% of directing is casting, and that’s what this was. To be able to put together a cast like this. There are no skips. Everybody is amazing. … And as I was working on the script, I started to envision people that I wanted.”
Based on Tomi Adeyemi’s acclaimed 2018 novel of the same name, Paramount’s “Children of Blood and Bone” was shot on location in South Africa, which subbed in for the fictional kingdom of Orïsha, where magic has been prohibited. There, the logline explains, “a young woman goes on a quest to reclaim the magic that was violently stolen from her people. She and her brother ally with the daughter and son of the king to fight back against his brutal rule.”
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Mbedu (“The Underground Railroad,” “The Woman King”) stars as Zélie Adebola, the young woman in question, who has the power to command the undead. Starring alongside her are Damson Idris as Prince Inan, Amandla Stenberg as Princess Amari, Tosin Cole as Zélie’s brother Tzain and Regina King as Queen Nehanda. Lashana Lynch, Idris Elba, Cynthia Erivo and Viola Davis round out the A-list cast.
Mbedu was thrilled to return to her native South Africa to work, and she began preparing for the role — including her stunt training — nearly one year before filming began. “I leaned into the source material a lot,” she said. “I don’t know how many times I read and reread the book, putting it next to the screenplay.” (Prince-Bythewood and Adeyemi share screenplay credit.)
“Tomi created a massive world, a huge world,” Mbedu continued. “We don’t have enough hours to put everything on screen. So finding the moments where, even if we’re not seeing it on screen, how am I bringing the reality of the history or the backstory of what we might have meant into the next moment.”
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Though the film does not debut until Jan.15, 2027, Adeyemi, who also served as an executive producer on the film, recently announced that she will not watch the finished product. On social media, Adeyemi shared that she left the “Children of Blood and Bone” set “hyperventilating and sobbing” and that she is “still being antagonized behind the scenes.” Neither Prince-Bythewood nor Mbedu directly addressed Adeyemi’s claims at MVAAFF, but the director of “The Woman King” did speak positively about the novelist and the world she crafted.
“Tomi’s a genius,” Prince-Bythewood said. “It’s a beautiful book, incredible characters. And this time when I read it, I was so connected to Lali’s character. And this young woman who was fighting to bring magic back- and we know what magic means for us. And her resilience, her fight and her search for purpose just spoke to me.”
The “Love and Basketball” director also spoke about casting Stenberg as Princess Amari. When the actress’ hiring was announced, there was an outcry over allegations of colorism due to Stenberg’s mixed-race status and lighter skin tone. Additionally, in a now-deleted TikTok video [via the L.A. Times], Adeyemi posted what appeared to be a group chat that included Stenberg. The author wrote, “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me” and appeared to block the actor. Prince-Bythewood did not address the drama onstage.
“I’ve admired [Amandla’s] work since ‘Colombiana,’” Prince-Bythewood told Hostin and the MVAAFF audience. “But I auditioned every young actor for that role of Amari, and Amandla took it, grabbed it.”
Though the “Children of Blood and Bone” premiere is still several months away, “The Old Guard” director is content to let the work speak for itself until then.
“You’re going to feel every human emotion in this,” she said. “You’re going to be angry, you’re going to laugh, you’re going to cry, you’re going to dance, you’re going to cheer, you’re going to feel hope at the end. And that’s why I hope we go to movies, to feel something, to be moved. So I’m so excited about that. And as we know, these films are rare. I’m so proud of this movie, so excited about this movie and the thing that it can do for us when we see ourselves in this way.”
