‘Tell Them You Love Me’s Nick August-Perna, Louis Theroux & Arron Fellows On Bringing Nuance To A Film About A Controversial Relationship And Why Festivals Just Didn’t Get It: “It’s Dark And Complicated, But Full Of Humanity”
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Tell Them You Love Me explores the story of a controversial affair between Anna Stubblefield, a white university professor, and Derrick Johnson, a non-verbal Black man with cerebral palsy.
Stubblefield claimed she and Johnson had fallen in love, but when his family found out about their intimate relationship, she was arrested, and in 2015 stood trial facing charges of aggravated sexual assault.
Ahead of the film bowing on Sky, filmmaker Nick August-Perna sat down with Deadline, alongside Louis Theroux and Arron Fellows, who produced through their Mindhouse banner.
The trio spoke about bringing such a multi-faceted story to the screen, capturing both sides authentically, and why festivals just didn’t get it. “It’s not often that a story comes along that has so many equal parts that are tugging at each other very forcefully, whether it be race or disability or gender,” August-Perna says about the feature documentary.
Read more on deadline.com