Film Forum

U.S., 1983
Written and directed by Charles Burnett
Starring Everett Silas, Jessie Holmes, Gaye Shannon-Burnett
Approx. 81 min.

In this tragicomic follow-up to the director’s breakthrough film KILLER OF SHEEP, a lowly dry cleaner worker’s yuppie brother is busy planning his nuptials to a snobbish upper-middle-class Black woman. “The story focuses on a young man who hasn’t developed beyond the embryonic stage, socially. And yet, in spite of his naive sensitivity, he's given the task of being his brother’s keeper.” – Charles Burnett

A MILESTONE FILMS/KINO LORBER RELEASE

Reviews

“The quintessential example of Burnett’s status as a premiere intergenerational storyteller...Watching this revitalization of the director’s picture is like spending your entire life seeing the world in black and white and being introduced to color.”
– Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com
Read the full review.

“ONE OF AMERICA’S VERY BEST FILMMAKERS.”
– Chicago Tribune

“Burnett’s work is an indelible reminder of what real independence looks like. His early films in particular also testify to the vitality of a neorealist impulse that has never quite taken root in American cinema. KILLER OF SHEEP and MY BROTHER’S WEDDING have a sense of place and personality that is marvelous and rare.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“Shows us how deep (Burnett’s) humanist perspective goes, yielding more evidence of the subtlety and patience with which this filmmaker explores one of the great subjects of his career: the problem of dignity among a demoralized underclass.”
– Andrew Chan, Slant