Driving While Black Comes To VOD February 1
Artists Rights Distribution Inc. will be bringing Paul Sapiano’s dark comedy Driving While Black to on-demand platforms this February.
Racist cops are a longstanding problem that has gotten significant attention in recent years thanks to the invention of bodycams. We’ve seen news stories of African-Americans being harassed by police while just doing ordinary things like paying for groceries, calling their mother in a hotel lobby, or just standing there doing nothing. If a large part of American society can’t look at a cop and feel safe, that means the entire judicial system is broken.
While there are no simple solutions, things can’t continue the way they are. Writer Dominique Purdy satirizes his experiences living in LA and dealing with a racially profiling police force in Driving While Black (he also stars as the lead actor).
Dmitri is a pizza guy who would rather smoke weed and suffer for his art, but his mom and his girl won’t stop nagging him to get a real job. When he’s offered a gig mouthing off to tourists behind the wheel of a Hollywood “star tour” bus, it looks like everyone might get what they want. Trouble is, our man can’t seem to step out the door to get to the interview without endless complications: busted radiators, simple weed scores gone sideways and LAPD cruisers seemingly everywhere. Dmitri’s skill at going unnoticed by cops is honed by painful experiences growing up Black in L.A., but even his keen survival instincts won’t save him from the week from hell.
Driving While Black will be released February 1, in time for Black History Month.