Sundance 2021 Exclusive: Carey Williams On Directing ‘R#J’ - New Version Of Romeo & Juliette

Making its World Premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival was the star-crossed lovers film 'R#J, a re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet directed by Carey Williams and starring newcomers Camaron Engels and Francesca Noel. Written by Williams, Rickie Castaneda and Alex Sobolev, also featured in the film are David Zayas, Diego Tinoco, Siddiq Saunderson, and Russell Hornsby.

In fair Verona, a war as old as time is brewing between rival houses—but it’s being captured in a new way. Montague and Capulet Gen Zers are using their cell phones to document the eruptions of violence plaguing their communities. In the middle of it all, Romeo discovers Juliet’s artwork at a party, and the two inevitably fall in love. As tensions between their families escalate, the two plead for peace and desperately search for a way to escape their star-crossed destiny.

For Carey Williams, this is his feature length debut but not his first time at the festival. He won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 for his short film “Emergency,” and had directed the short film, “Cherry Waves” back in 2012 when it played at the American Black Film Festival. Filmmaker Magazine named him as one of 2018's New Faces of Independent Film.

BlackFilmandTV.com caught up with Williams as he spoke about the making of this film and new version.

You’re back at Sundance. How did this project come about for you?

Carey Williams: After Sundance with Emergency, I was contacted by Bazelevs Company, who had done Searching, an earlier screenlife movie, and they were interested in talking about doing screen life film with Romeo and Juliet. We just took it from there, I was like, "I don't know how to do a screenlife Project." I've never done anything like that before but I'd seen Searching and thought that was really cool. So I was like, “Let's get into it. Let's see what we can make. Maybe we make something really special and unique."

How challenging was using the complexity of the Shakespeare language with today’s social media apps?

Carey Williams: The challenge was just having faith and believing that it was going to work. Are we going to be able to fluctuate between the two, and is it going to be jarring? I made the decision that we have to go for it. If we're making this kind of movie, let's swing as much as possible and believe that it will work. When we got into it, and made it and shot it, and when the edit process was tempering and balancing, we wanted to get the flow right. We wanted to make sure it's not too much of one thing or another where you get fatigue on reading or something like that.

With your cast, you are using a cast of Black, Latino and Mixed right?

Carey Williams: Yeah. We're looking at people of color in these roles. We've got Black. We've got Latino, That was one thing that really attracted me to doing the project. Seeing those faces in these roles. We don't get to see enough of that. So I thought that would be wonderful to have that representation for people that see it.

What would it what went into the casting?

Carey Williams: we cast with Doyle Fiorelli Casting, they were they were fantastic. They brought us a lot of great, great actors. We were very fortunate to find the cast that we that we got because they were they were game and they were brave, to step into something like this. That was unfamiliar for everyone and go all in and give it their all and do a fantastic job. I specifically seen Siddiq Saunderson in the Wu-Tang series and I was like, “Wow, that dude is incredible." Thankfully he came in and was dope and we were able to get him. Cameron and Francesca were discoveries for me. I'm so glad I did find them. They were brought to me and did amazing job. RJ and Russell Hornsby, of course. I’m just thankful that all these people were down to do this project because it could have been like, “We don't know this. We're not doing it.” There were a lot of question marks with this one.They were just amazing to come through and play with us.

How did Timur Bekmambetov get involved?

Carey Williams: Timur is the OG. He's the one who created this whole format. This format is his baby. It's bold. It’s innovative, and it’s expanding the language of film in a creative way. It's giving young, hungry filmmakers an opportunity to do things and tell stories in a new way. It’s shaking the tree of filmmaking, That's how he was involved, he started it.

What are you learning as you continue to evolve as a filmmaker?

Carey Williams: Every time I do a project, I'm learning something. Either learning shit that I definitely want to do again, or learning shit that I should not do again. It's an art form, and there's no right or wrong. So I've taken something positive and negative from every project. That's what I want to keep doing. A lot of the projects I've done before have set the stage for what I'm coming into now. I'm really thankful for them. Being able to learn and grow and develop some good relationships along the way, and be poised for whatever's to come next.

Having won here a few years and now you’re back with a feature film, what does Sundance mean to you?

Carey Williams: Being a part of Sundance has been a dream of mine for a long time to have a feature there. It’s still blowing my mind that it’s come to fruition. It's been years of hard work, and really just exploring my craft and continuing to push. And it means a lot, because this is a space where I've seen so many films before me that have resonated for me. It feels like these are special films. These are important films. These are films that are really pushing the art form, and are amazing. To be welcomed into that group, I can't say enough how special it is to me. It's not lost to me it. It bolsters my spirit to continue on and keep making films because it lets me know that they are resonating. Having a platform for other people to see it from Sundance is incredible. It really is.