Clockwise from Left: Raven Jackson, Maria Altamirano, and Jomo Fray (Photos Courtesy of IMDB)
Alum Raven Jackson’s feature directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is officially in the works, and will be produced by fellow alum Maria Altamirano along with Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and A24.
Through lyrical portraits evoking the texture of memories, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt viscerally and sensorially explores the life of Mack, a Black woman in Tennessee, from her youth to her older years. The film is an intimate examination of family, place, grief, and the ineffable moments that shape a life. For the time being, the plot details are still unannounced, but the success Jackson has had with the story up until this point promises a fantastic feature.
After Jackson won the New Orleans Film Festival’s Narrative South Pitch Competition in 2019, the script became a 2020 Film Independent Fast Track, a 2020 Cinereach Grantee, one of five films selected for the Ikusmira Berriak Residency in San Sebastián, Spain, and was handpicked by Barry Jenkins for Indie Memphis’ 2019 Black Filmmaker Residency in Screenwriting. Jackson and Altamirano also received the 2019 SFFILM Rainin Filmmaking Grant, an award whose past recipients include critically revered projects such as alum Chloe Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, and Benh Zaitlin’s Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild.
The film will be shot by alum Jomo Fray, and production is expected to begin later this year.
Read more at Deadline.