‘Highway to the Moon’ is the directorial debut of BAFTA Award-winning actress Letitia Wright, who is the mastermind behind the project. Renowned for playing ‘Shuri’ in ‘Black Panther’, she has also appeared in projects such as ‘Small Axe’, ‘Black Mirror’ and ‘Death on the Nile’.
Moving into the realm of directing, the visually stunning short ‘Highway to the Moon’ by Letitia Wright delves into the topic of grief and healing, following a knife crime. Taking us on a spiritual journey, it depicts a young man entering a limbo state, processing the events that led him there and connecting with others as he enters a new spiritual territory. From the thought-provoking plot to the powerful visual elements, the film also has an impressive musical score.
The film is commissioned by WePresent and produced by Wright’s 3.16 Productions, and stars the likes of Aboulaye Touray, Kenyah Sandy (Small Axe), Lamar Waves and Treva Etienne. ‘Highway to the Moon’ premiered at the South London Festival, earned a Best Sci-Fi nomination at HollyShorts in LA and has also been selected for the 69th BFI London Film Festival. As part of an outreach campaign to address youth violence and mental health, the film will also be shown to youth groups and in schools. Letitia will be going on a school tour across the UK and she will also visit the US.
In celebration of her directorial debut, Letitia Wright held a screening and an exclusive Q&A, where she delved deeper into the film. She shines light on selecting the cast and crew and she also gives some spoilers and insight into the film’s plot. If you’d like to watch the film before reading the Q&A, ‘Highway to the Moon’ is out now and is available to watch below on YouTube.
In the Q&A, Letitia spoke with an interviewer about one of the events that inspired the film, which was the loss of her friend’s brother, Junior and she knew him. She later talks about a situation involving her brother.
‘My little brother went to school, his friend was angry and he literally had to talk his friend out of bringing out a weapon, because the kid was just upset, he was being bullied at school and he wanted to retaliate and I remember my little brother being like ‘I had to tell my friend not to do that’, that was a brave thing my little brother chose to do that day. But then, as days and months went by, I started to think about the spirit of our boys and where they end up, and that kind of manifested itself into these images and these stories that relentlessly would chase me and I had to put pen to paper. So, I wanted to do something that wasn’t in any way trying to glorify it, stigmatise it, or put it into a category of this only happens to young boys in gangs, or any of the stuff that we’ve been seeing. Those stories are true and I don’t want to take away from those stories and those backgrounds and people that come from that. But also, it could be as simple as having an argument and something just happening.’
She also went onto say: ‘I saw the story of Harry Uzoka, that also put a spanner in the works really, because it was just like we’re so used to seeing these types of images and these types of stories and when he got stabbed and he lost his life, it was the same situation of a disagreement with a friend and that happening. So, I just wanted to take this spiritual aspect of it and focus and lock in on that and just to make something a little bit more beautiful, for them to see themselves, for them to say hey, when I see another brother, this is really a life, this is really spirit, this person is just as important as I am, and taking their life like that in a blink of an eye it can change so much and it affects so much, there is a ripple effect that is caused. So that’s the inception of it and I had to follow through. There’s many times when I put the story down and it would just keep chasing me, but I just wanted to follow through on it and give a love letter to them and to Junior as well, whose life has been taken.
Held inside a cinema, at the heart of London, Letitia sat with an interviewer who asked her questions about her debut film, including how she assembled her cast and crew.
She began the answer saying: ‘It started off with the cast, really, I knew I wanted Kenyah Sandy to be the lead.’
Letitia had known Kenyah whilst working on ‘Small Axe’ with Steve McQueen. She continues: ‘He did Episode 5, ‘Education’, and he was so small, but he was so amazing and I remember, because that came out in 2020, so this story started to manifest in 2020, so I kept an eye on him. I auditioned other boys, but he broke through, as I predicted he would. Lamar Waves, who plays Trey, he also auditioned for Micah, however, he felt really mature, because he is in his 20s, but he has great experience in acting and he wanted to be a part of it, so I crafted a role for him and that role, as you can see at the end of the film, is one of forgiveness and one of a brother needing help and forgiveness and what does that mean to give someone that, when you just encountered that broken friendship.’
She then says: ‘Then the other boys, if you want to call it, street castings, I went to workshops in London, with theatre groups. I connected with an organisation called ‘Umoja’, which means unity, in New York and I just spent a week with these boys. And for me, I thought it was a week where I can escape from mourning the loss of my brother Chadwick, I thought ‘ah, it’s going to be young boys, they’re going to distract me’, but all the things we were talking about was really really deep, so I found them in that group, I found them in that camp and they educated me about some of the things they were dealing with and a lot of mental health stuff too.’
After talking about how she assembled her cast, she said: ’My crew was a little bit different, I had to really find my tribe because I am a first time director, there are things and technicalities to this craft that I don’t really know and I am not really familiar with, so I needed a team of people who were willing to teach me and to be kind enough to hold my hands through it, some people continued with me, some people did not, they got fed up and they left half way. Some editors were just like ‘I’m not editing it anymore’, just no reason at all, just left the film, and I learnt some hard lessons about what it means to have a dream, have a vision, and to have the right people to stay with it. But thankfully, I found people that would stay, and I’ve found people, like the team at We Present, like the team at Together Films, like the team at Common Pictures, who just believed in me and just carried on with me.’
The interviewer also asked how has this whole process, everything that has gone into the film and everything that she has learned, has developed her as an artist. ‘Yeah it’s definitely allowed me to see the perspectives of what it means to have a team on a project, it’s given me another perspective as an actress, because usually when you’re on set you think the whole world revolves around you and everything is about you and it’s really not, so it’s given me that perspective to know that it really does take a village and it’s about just the contribution as a whole, it’s taught me that. Outside of that it’s taught me that as an artist, we think that we can just have one avenue of expression and sometimes wanting to divert to another avenue of expression can feel intimidating and it feels like you’re an imposter and sometimes that’s a reality, you know, but you never know what you can be on the other side of that.’
Letitia Wright is undeniably talented at both her craft as an actor and as a director and ‘Highway to the Moon’ is an important moment in her career and the start of her trajectory as a director.
