Filmmaker Dubois Ashong recently finished production on his latest offering, entitled “No Boni”. The film tells the story of the first test patient involved in the United States’ Pharmaceutical Reparation Experiment (also known as the ADRMA Experiment).
Set in 2016, a young man, played by Bishop The Eastside Nappyhead of the bilingual Hip-Hop duo Negros Americanos, finds himself the center of a pharmaceutical clinical trial focused on giving psychological reparations – in the form of a pill – to African Diasporian people affected by slavery. The film follows this patient as he is administered the highly classified “NO BONI” pill which takes him on a mind-bending journey to regain the history of his ancestors, during, after, and prior to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Speaking on the film production, Dubois Ashong said, “The film took us, off & on, about two months to shoot. We shot part of the film in the slave dungeons of Cape Coast Castle in Cape Coast, Ghana. The other half was shot at Mindframe Studios at the Solo(s) Project House gallery here in Newark.”
On the casting, he said, “I wanted to create a film with artists in Newark that I felt were dope. Every character in the film is an artist who works out of Newark and does work that I feel is influential to our community and worldwide. Some of the artists in the film are muralist and educator LYN, muralist and artist Gaia, POOR KINGZ artists and designers, filmmaker and educator Pierre M. Coleman, and artist Kaylan Jones.
See the teaser here…
NO BONI official teaser from DuBois Ashong on Vimeo.