by Kelly Townsend
Clement Virgo’s drama feature Brother was recognized at the 55th NAACP Image Awards.
The film won Outstanding Independent Motion Picture during the virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday (March 13), and Outstanding International Motion Picture at the awards dinner on Thursday (March 14).
Other nominees in the Outstanding Independent Motion Picture category included Chris Spencer’s Back on the Strip, Aristotle Torres’s Story Ave, Martin Guigui’s Sweetwater, and Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. The film was up against Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi’s Mami Wata, Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane, and J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow for Outstanding International Motion Picture.
Brother is written and directed by Clement, who produced the film alongside his Conquering Lion Pictures partner Damon D’Oliveira and Hawkeye Pictures’ Aeschylus Poulos and Sonya Di Rienzo. Elevation Pictures is the Canadian distributor, while Vertical Entertainment distributed the film in the U.S.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by David Chariandy, and follows the trials and tribulations of two brothers (portrayed by Lamar Johnson and Aaron Pierre) growing up in Scarborough, Ont.
Brother was nominated for three NAACP Image Awards categories overall, including Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in a Motion Picture for Pierre.
The NAACP Image Awards honour excellence in film, television, music, theatre and literature. The 2024 winners have been announced across five events: three virtual ones between March 10 to 13, a non-televised awards dinner on March 14, and a live awards broadcast on Saturday, March 16 in L.A.
Source: https://playbackonline.ca/2024/03/14/clement-virgos-brother-wins-2024-naacp-image-award/