Hair Love: Pulls on the heartstrings in ways you wouldn’t imagine

WRITTEN BY: ASHLEY DUNN

Hair Love,

The New York Times Best Selling Children’s Picture Book, now short film opens In theaters today ahead of Angry Birds Movie 2. 

Hair Love Follows Zuri with an emphasis on her Dad as he struggles to not only do his daughters hair while her mom is unable to; due to unforeseen circumstances, but to do it right. 

This film pulls on the heartstrings in ways you wouldn’t imagine. 

I sat down with Author, Creator & Director Matthew Cherry and Film Director, Illustrator, Writer and Academy Award Winner  

Peter Ramsey at Sony Animations to talk about how the book turned was turned into short film. 

Matthew stated that the inspiration behind the book turned short came about because,

“We wanted to represent African American Fathers and Young Girls as well as moms, and after seeing so many viral videos of fathers doing their daughters hair; we wanted to delve into creating these characters.”

“We wanted to show a story of the dynamic between father and daughter, and the depths that fathers will go through to make their daughters happy. This film also eloquently tackles the subject of natural hair and how it can be appear hard to manage, but i love The message of it just takes a little time, love and care and voila you’ve done it. 

Matthew played in the NFL before ultimately leaving that career to began a completely different journey, Matthew Spoke of the similarities and differences in the two.  

“The worlds are similar, in that in football you are very focused on your one specific task, I played WR and ran my routes and if someone didn’t do their job you didn’t get the ball, whereas now I am in more of a Coach position making sure everyone is in line with the overall vision, and making sure everyone is on track”. It’s definitely harder, because it’s not just about you and one specific job but many jobs and the bigger picture”. 

Peter Ramsey, Academy Award Winning Director, From DreamWorks Animation’ s Rise Of the Guardians and Sony Pictures Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse, got involved with this project after Matthew sent over the script. 

“The Representation in Animation just hasn’t been where it needed to be, he showed me the script and asked what I thought, and it’s a beautiful story with heart from a point of view that people don’t often get to see.” 

“Everything about this was perfect from the story to the animation and the need for people to see it”.

You may hear some familiar voices in the film; Matthew on how Issa Rae became involved with the project as the voice of Zuri’s Mom. 

“She has a Unique voice, and she’s one of the young black actresses, young people look too that are in the forefront of the natural hair movement, I have followed Issa since ABG and we were supposed to collaborate on past projects but they just didn’t pan out, so when this opportunity came up it’s was just perfect timing. 

If the stars align we’ll get to see more of Zuri and family, Matthew Cherry On what’s next for Hair Love “We’ve been in early talks to figure out a way to turn this into a TV series”. Hair Love definitely deserves its own space, and with such an important message and story one can only hope we get more. 

Be sure to catch Hair Love in Theaters Today in Conjunction with Angry Birds Movie 2.