Judas and the Black Messiah is a film steeped in history. Not only does it finally bring to the screen one of the most important figures in the American civil rights story, Chairman Fred Hampton of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (played masterfully by Oscar-nominee Daniel Kaluuya), it’s a film that keenly evokes the context that story took place in, both in the American struggle for equality and in the global one. It’s also a film that knows its cinema history, and in fact took inspiration from one of the greatest films about the fight for freedom ever made, and one of the best Arab films in history—The Battle of Algiers.
“You know, one of the films that was constantly referred to in our earliest meetings and conversations with [Judas and the Black Messiah director Shaka King] was The Battle of Algiers,” the film’s executive producer Sev Ohanian tells Esquire Middle East.
“When I read the script for the first time, that was the movie that I had just re-watched and was present in my mind, and all I could think about was another group of tiny underdogs fighting for their advocacy, their rights, their the right to self-determination against an impossibly large machine. I think you could describe both movies that way,” Ohanian continues.
The Battle of Algiers is one of the key texts of any film lover’s education, professional or otherwise. Since its release in 1966, the film, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo and starring and produced by Algerian Saadi Yacef, depicts events from the Algerian War of the mid 20th century, focusing on the Algerian rebels fighting for the country’s independence from France. It was shot with non-professional actors in black and white as if it’s a newsreel or documentary, giving the film a stark realism that captures both the time and place, as well as the realities of living through a conflict of that nature, better than any film in history. It’s rarely let off any list that it could potentially appear.
Judas and the Black Messiah, in cinemas now across the UAE, may not be filmed in precisely the same manner, but the lengths it went to recreate the events depicted, in which the legendary civil rights leader’s group was covertly infiltrated by FBI informant William O’Neal (played by Lakeith Stanfield), leading to his assassination, were extensive.
The Armenian-American Ohanian produced the film alongside his long-time collaborator Ryan Coogler, director of Fruitvale Station, Creed, and Black Panther. The two have set up a company along with Zinzi Coogler, Proximity Media, with Judas and the Black Messiah being the first film produced under the banner.
Gaining the trust of Fred Hampton Jr.
One of Ohanian’s main roles on set was collaborating with the real-life son of Fred Hampton, Chairman Fred Hampton Jr, making sure that the film was as true to the real events, and the spirit of Hampton Jr’s father, as possible.
“He was on set for, I would say, 90 percent of our shooting days. A lot of what I was tasked to help with was kind of making sure Chairman Fred was constantly aware of what was happening, having him take a look at the scenes, flag anything that he would have felt that were inaccurate or untrue to the spirit of what his father’s mission was about, and help be that bridge between him and Shaka and rest of our team,” says Ohanian.
That job wasn’t always easy. The crew, after all, were making a film for a major studio, but had to first and foremost build and maintain trust with the family of the late Hampton, making sure that the visions of everyone involved coalesced. Even getting the permission of the family in the first place was not a given.
“It was absolutely a process. A very, very arduous process that we had to be incredibly sensitive and diplomatic about. At the end of the day, Chairman Fred Hampton Jr’s life mission is to protect the legacy of his father fiercely. We were not the first group of filmmakers to have ever approached him and his mother Akua. Filmmakers bigger than us that had been knocking on their doors long before we ever showed up,” says Ohanian.
“I think what was important, as far as how we got as far as we did initially, was honestly Ryan Coogler and Shaka, Zinzi Coogler and Charles D. King making several trips to Chicago to meet with Chairman Fred Jr and walking them through their devotion, and later our devotion, to telling the story in a way that would not water it down, that would not commercialize it unnecessarily, that would really be true to his father’s legacy.”
Each day, Ohanian would work with Hampton Jr. on set, going over every minute detail of production.
“It was constant, regular conversations with Chairman Fred. We would would read the script together days in advance, walk him through some of the sets, sometimes have many conversations with Shaka. To be frank, Chairman Fred had no shortage of notes to give. And a lot of them were quite great that there are moments in the movie that I can say, without a doubt, were improved. It was purely creative storytelling, because Chairman Fred would say, ‘hey, that that didn’t reflect my father’s spirit’, and in those creative moments, Shaka, Charles, Ryan and all of us, found a way to come up with a different thing.”
Ohanian, who didn’t know much about the Fred Hampton story before his friend and collaborator Coogler clued him in, now counts Hampton’s son as one of his close friends.
“It is crazy to go from one day Ryan asking me to be a producer on this movie, and not knowing anything about the subject matter, to now being a close friend and colleague of Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. has been, honestly, quite the journey, and I can’t imagine a better experience for me.”
A producer’s story
Ohanian’s journey to the film actually began back when he was in USC Film School as a graduate student, when he initially befriended Coogler. Ohanian was working in the student office of the Robert Zemeckis Center on campus, manning the front desk, and Coogler and he would often strike up a chat when he passed by.
“We would just have random conversations, and we had a lot of mutual friends together. We had never worked together at USC, but I was an incredible fan of his of his films. If I remember right, there was a screening of one of his theses. The auditorium was so packed, not necessarily for him, so I sat on the floor in the front of the theatre, and just watched his student film and was literally blown away.”
Ohanian had initially planned to become an assistant and work his way up, perhaps becoming a real producer maybe 10 years down the line. That changed when Coogler called him up a few months before he graduated, wanting to bring on a producer he could trust for a film he was going to write and direct.
“It was a script called Fruitvale Station. I ended up spending a lot of time on his couch, then got my own place eventually. We made Fruitvale Station just figuring it out as we were going along, like a lot of us. That film had this incredible journey with Sundance and the Cannes Film Festival and everything that came with it,” says Ohanian.
Fruitvale Station was a huge critical success, helping to launch the career of both Ohanian and Coogler while also cementing the film’s lead Michael B Jordan as a leading man. Coogler and Jordan went on to make two more films together, both fantastically-received blockbusters—Creed (2015) and Marvel’s Black Panther (2018).
Ohanian, meanwhile, used that time to forge his own path, working with director Aneesh Chaganty on a feature film called Searching (2018), set entirely on a computer screen, that ended up as an indie smash in its own right, grossing more than $75 million on a budget of less than $900,000, also produced by Ohanian’s now-wife Natalie Qasabian, which the trio followed up with the Sarah Paulson-starring thriller Run, which debuted on Hulu in the United States last fall, and the upcoming adaptation of Dan Frey’s novel The Future Is Yours with The Batman director Matt Reeves.
“The whole time Ryan and I kept in touch. At one point, he approached me about potentially starting the company together with me, him and Zinzi. The bottom line is that Ryan Coogler trusted me to help produce his first feature film at a time when I hadn’t ever produced a feature film before. So when he when he asked me, like, ‘let’s start this company together’, had to do it, there’s nothing else I could have done but put my trust in him and follow him on this journey,” says Ohanian.
The two co-wrote and produced the upcoming Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) starring Lebron James, and just inked a five year deal with Marvel that will include a series set in the world of Black Panther entitled Wakanda—which Ohanian isn’t at liberty to divulge one iota of information about. What he is willing to do, instead of talk about his own accomplishments, is gush about his friend Ryan.
“He’d hate to hear me say this, but I think Ryan Coogler is arguably one of the greatest directors of our generation. I can’t wait for people to realize how incredible of a producer he is at the same time, because he’s insanely hands on. So observant, so respectful, so like business-minded, and at the same time, like he’s a pleasure to work with. And I think that goes probably for anybody who’s ever worked with him.”
Judas and the Black Messiah is in cinemas now across the Middle East
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