Director Phillip Youman responds to question about possible influences on his film that won the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival awards for Best Narrative Film, Best Actor and Best Cinematography. BURNING CANE appears on Netflix Wednesday, November 6. Director Phillip Youman, in person at 5:10 p.m, & 7:20 p.m. today, October 26, at the IFC Center.
Writer/Director/Cinematographer/Producer/Editor YOUMANhales from the 7th Ward of New Orleans. Before high school, he wrote, directed, shot and edited his own short films. During his high school years at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Phillip solidified the technical foundation of filmmaking in NOCCR’s media arts program. In his junior year, he worked on his first feature film BURNING CANE. His most recent video installation, Won’t You Celebrate With Me premiered through Solange Knowles’ creative agency Saint Heron at the end of his senior year of high school.
His latest short film NAIROBI, also made with Saint Heron, about a Harlem-based family of francophone West-African immigrants, is to premiere on their platform this year. Enrolled in NYU, Phillip is in post-production on a short documentary about the Grammy-nominated jazz musician Jon Batiste titled THE VANGUARD: DAYS WITH JOHN BATISTE.
BURNING CANE is Phillip’s feature-length debut.