Exclusive: Daniel Kaluuya and Kane Robinson talk dystopian thriller The Kitchen
Hitting Netflix on Jan. 19 is the dystopian thriller The Kitchen, marking the directorial debut of Kibwe Tavares & Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya. The cast includes Top Boy’s Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Ian Wright, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Cristale, BackRoad Gee, Teija Kabs, and Demmy Ladipo.
In a dystopian London (2044), the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only The Kitchen remains. A community that refuses to move out of the place they call home. This is where we meet a solitary Izi, living here by necessity and desperately trying to find a way out, and a 12-year-old Benji, who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them.
The film was produced by Daniel Emmerson for DMC Film (Calm With Horses), with Kaluuya for his 59% Productions banner. The screenplay was co-written by Joe Murtagh (Calm with Horses). The project was developed through the Sundance Screenwriting and Directing Lab in 2016. Theo Barrowclough serves as a co-producer, while Conor McCaughan and Michael Fassbender will serve as executive producers for DMC.
Best known for breakthrough role in Jordan Peele's horror film Get Out, which garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Kaluuya then starred in Ryan Coogler's Marvel film Black Panther, Steve McQueen's crime drama Widows, and Peele's horror film Nope. For his portrayal of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in the biopic Judas and the Black Messiah (2021), he won the BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2023, he voiced the character Hobart "Hobie" Brown / Spider-Punk in the animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
A British rapper, songwriter and actor, Robinson is best known for playing the role of Sully in Top Boy.
Blackfilmandtv.com’s Wilson Morales spoke with Kaluuya and Robinson on the making of The Kitchen.
