Netflix Releases Trailer for Tessa Thompson’s Black & White Drama “Passing”

Tessa Thompson is passing the time…

Netflix has released the official trailer for Rebecca Hall’s period drama Passing, starring the 37-year-old Afro-Panamanian actress and producer and Ruth Negga.

Tessa Thompson, Passing

Hall, making her directorial debut, adapted the film from the 1929 novel by Nella Larson.

Netflix is preparing for the film’s New York Film Festival premiere on October 3, after which it will get a theatrical release followed by a debut on the streaming service on November 10.

The film, shot it black and white, tells the story of two Black women, Irene Redfield (Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Negga), who can “pass” as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the color line during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in late 1920s New York.

After a chance encounter, Irene reluctantly allows Clare into her home, where she ingratiates herself to Irene’s husband (André Holland) and family, and soon her larger social circle as well. Irene soon finds her once-steady existence upended by Clare, and the story becomes one of obsession, repression and the lies people tell themselves and others to protect their carefully constructed realities.

Bill Camp, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and Alexander Skarsgard also star in the film, which is produced by Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker, Margot Hand and Hall.

Netflix competed in a field of five bidders to win rights to Passing in a $15 million deal during the Sundance Film Festival.

Its release is timed to the now-underway movie awards season.

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