Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Connie Nielsen have all joined the cast of Ava DuVernay’s new film “Caste”.
Aunjanue Ellis leads the movie inspired by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s nonfiction work “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”.
According to the official synopsis from the publisher, the book uses a deeply researched narrative and “stories about real people exploring how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.”
Along with race, class, and other expected factors, the system influences not only people’s lives and behavior but the nation’s fate. Wilkerson explores the idea of eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.
It ultimately “points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.”
“A Wrinkle in Time” and “Selma” director DuVernay writes, directs and produces the film alongside her longtime collaborator Paul Garnes (“Middle of Nowhere”).
Nash-Betts and Farmiga previously worked with DuVernay on “When They See Us,” Offerman on “Colin in Black & White”. Bernthal and Ellis starred together in “King Richard”. Cephas Jones currently stars in the “Blindspotting” series, whilst Nielsen recently shot “Ocean Deep”.
Filming on “Caste” is now underway in Georgia, with additional filming to take place in Germany and India.
Source: Variety
