When I saw Ava DuVernay’s sophomore feature Middle of Nowhere a few years back, I wrote in my Letterboxd online diary that it “reeks of Sundance-itis.” It has the sort of crowd-pleasing-but-still-independent earnestness that wins over crowds at that damn festival, where DuVernay won a Best Director award for said movie in 2012. But I also wrote that this film, about a registered nurse (Emayatzy Corinealdi) torn between her incarcerated husband (Omari Hardwick) and an out-and-about bus driver (David Oyelowo), is a fine example of the visual brilliance DuVernay can bring to a movie. And DuVernay has been killing it on both the big and small screens since then — a lot of people in Hollywood saw this movie and put her brilliance to good use. Jennifer Fay, Vanderbilt associate professor of Cinema and Media Arts and English, and Regan Williams, a pediatric surgeon who did her undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt, will present the movie, which screens as part of Vanderbilt’s ongoing International Lens series. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
International Lens: Middle of Nowhere
