John Boyega is set to executive produce South African crime-thriller God Is Good.
The film — likened to Prisoners meets City of God — is from writer-director Willem Grobler and is being produced by former Sony International producer Josephine Rose through her new banner Bandit Country.
Set in the Cape Flats, God Is Good revolves around a pastor and a detective who cross paths after an act of brutal violence sets them on a collision course with a heinous gang lieutenant who will stop at nothing to get to the top.
Alongside executive producing the feature, Boyega — currently shooting Star War IX for director J.J. Abrams — will oversee the soundtrack through his UpperRoom Records, which he set up with Yara Shaikh and Stefan Wade. The team will work with African artists on a soundtrack that Boyega said “represents and gives voice to the incredible range of music talent,” with rising South African rapper YoungstaCPT, who grew up in the Cape Flats, already among those selected.
“I’m thrilled to be teaming once again with Josephine Rose on such a powerful and important story that explores themes of fathers and fatherhood, toxic masculinity, race and faith in a community that has become trapped in an unending cycle of violence and racial oppression, and where sometimes it seems for men that violence is the only way of achieving power,” said Boyega. “Willem has written a superb screenplay and we are looking forward to working with him to realize the vision behind it.”
God Is Good is the latest project from Bandit Company, which Rose formed after leaving Sony Pictures International, where she was a producer on Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s new comedy-horror film, Slaughterhouse Rulez. Other projects on her slate include A Spriggan, with filmmaker Keir Burrows, which Boyega is also exec producing; and Ursula Le Guin science-fiction adaptation Nine Lives, with Quark Films, which is set to star Jonny Lee Miller and Common.
God Is Good is Grober’s debut feature; the former Durban Talent and IFP film week alumnus’ short film Hum has won several international awards. Grober has also co-written Spoorloos, a 13-episode crime drama for South Africa’s kykNet broadcaster, and is co-writing an upcoming crime thriller for the South African Broadcasting Commission.
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