THE REWRITE. World Premieres at American Black Film Festival

On Thursday, June 12th @ 2:15 PM

Boca Raton, FL – June 06, 2025 – American Black Film Festival, an annual event dedicated to empowering Black talent and showcasing film and television content by and about people of African descent is premiering the debut feature film “The ReWrite.” from promising writer/director Terry Dawson.

Since its conception in 1997, ABFF has been a vital platform for Black artists, offering them pathways to success within Hollywood and beyond. The recipient of 2024’s Best Narrative Feature, “Peripheral” is coming to BET+ this August. Previous fest winners, including “Trees of Peace” are currently streaming on Netflix. 

Dawson’s “The ReWrite is a grounded dramedy about a struggling screenwriter, obsessed with portraying Black Excellence and authenticity on the big screen, who is forced to do a rewrite of his latest draft in order to save his career.  But when he revisits the characters in his script in real life, he soon realizes that his own world is short on authenticity and anything but excellent. 

A Los Angeles based filmmaker, Terry Dawson won the 2022 Warner Brothers-Discovery, Best Short Film Award at Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival with “The Mason Ring,” which he developed in Film Independent’s Project Involve. His directorial debut, award-winning web series “A Whole New Irving,” landed in development at HBO. With roots in documentary film, Terry worked as an editor and producer on titles including Kiss The Ground (Netflix) and The Lost City Of The Monkey God (Discovery+).

“It feels like it’s typically the move for filmmakers offering a debut feature film to come with a bold social commentary that “contributes to the collective conversation” in some overt way,” says Dawson, “But I love comedy. And rich character driven dialogue. I really wanted to make a Woody Allen/Mike Nichols/Robert Altman style ‘slice of life’ comedy/drama but from the Black POV. A story about the life of a Black screenwriter. Of course, in trying to make it in Hollywood, my protagonist Elliott is grappling with imposed perceptions of what ‘Black authenticity’ is. But for me the real story is about his own internal journey of authenticity. Both as an artist and a (well meaning but messy) human being.”

The film’s ensemble cast boasts a talented slate of actors know for their work in film, theatre and television including stand out performances from Freddy D. Ramsey Jr. (“S.W.A.T.” and “This is Us”), Stephen Barrington (“Power Book III: Raising Kana” and “FBI: Most Wanted”), Taylor Popoola (“Abbott Elementary” and Black-ish”), Felice Heather Monteith (“Black-ish” and “Grace and Frankie”), and Don Wallace (“All American” and NCIS: Los Angeles).

“The ReWrite.” was produced by Julie Bersani of Black Poppy Productions in partnership with  Dawson and Bill and Laurie Benenson of Benenson Productions. This will be Dawson’s feature directorial debut.

Black Poppy Productions is a full service production company that specializes in identifying, developing, and producing uniquely told stories that value imagination and representation. Committed to creating opportunities for stories and storytellers that have been historically underrepresented in media, Black Poppy Productions recent films include Dylan & Zoey  (STARZ) starring Claudia Doumit, Land of Gold (MAX, Tribeca|ATT Untold Stories Winner) the directorial debut of Nardeep Khurmi, and Back to Lyla the sophomore feature from America Young, starring Hassie Harrison, Emma Kenney, and Tracie Thoms. Black Poppy Productions recently released a class, Making a Movie from Script to Screen to guide filmmakers through the process of shooting their first film.