Ava DuVernay’s MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and THIS IS THE LIFE Premiere on Netflix, Thurs., Feb. 11th

In celebration of its 10th anniversary this year, ARRAY Releasing announces the premieres of founder Ava DuVernay’s earliest, award-winning films – feature drama MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and documentary, THIS IS THE LIFE. Both films will be released on Netflix on Thurs, Feb. 11.

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, written, directed and produced by DuVernay, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic Film. DuVernay made history as the first African-American to win the Best Director award. Written and directed by DuVernay, THIS IS THE LIFE is a feature-length documentary that pays tribute to the alternative hip hop emcees, poets and musicians that launched their LA-born and bred style of music at the Good Life Café in the 1990s. From the café’s location on the corner of Crenshaw Blvd. and Exposition Blvd. in Los Angeles, it expanded across the US and internationally. 

(Previously released on Netflix) In DuVernay’s award-winning MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, the impact of inner-city life and mass incarceration frames the film. When her husband Derek (Omari Hardwick) is sentenced to eight years in prison, Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi) drops out of medical school in order to focus on her husband’s well-being while he’s incarcerated – leading her on a journey of self-discovery in the process. The cast was largely unknown in 2012, but are now familiar, household names – Corinealdi (“Ballers” “The Red Line”), David Oyelowo (SELMA), Hardwick (“Power”), Lorraine Toussaint (“Your Honor”), Edwina Findley Dickerson (“If Loving You is Wrong”), Sharon Lawrence (“Queen Sugar”).

Screened as a work-in-progress film in 2008 at Los Angeles’ Pan African Film Festival (PAFF), THIS IS THE LIFE showcases the emerging voices, the emcees, that shaped the alternative hip hop movement that flourished in LA in the 1990s, centered around the legendary the Good Life Café. The film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary and a Special Jury mention at the PAFF. Some of LA’s most dynamic, lyrical and ground-breaking emcees were featured in the documentary: Freestyle Fellowship, Cut Chemist of Jurassic 5, Chali 2na, Abstract Rude, Medusa, Pigeon Joh, CVE, Busdriver, and Myka 9. 

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and THIS IS THE LIFE are the first ARRAY Releasing films slated for 2021.

In 2020, ARRAY presented eight distinctive, critically-acclaimed films: ALASKA IS A DRAG by Shaz Bennett, Deepa Mehta’s FUNNY BOY, Takeshi Fukunaga’s NAACP Image Award nominee AINU MOSIR, Isabel Sandoval’s Independent Spirit Award nominee LINGUA FRANCA, the Independent Spirit Award nominated RESIDUE from Merawi Gerima, Stephanie Turner’s JUSTINE, Simon Frederick’s THEY’VE GOTTA HAVE US and Numa Perrier’s JEZEBEL. Previous releases include Gotham and Spirit Award nominee and triple Tribeca Film Festival winner BURNING CANE from Phillip Youmans; award-winning Canadian indigenous feature THE BODY REMEMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN written and directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn; the critically acclaimed directorial debut of Samuel Bazawule’s THE BURIAL OF KOJO; and Official Sundance Film Festival Documentary Selection MERATA by Hepi Mita.