FOLLOWING THE journey of Isabelle Wilkerson, an esteemed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and American scholar who wrote the book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, the film Origin was created and directed by Ava DuVernay. Hitting UK cinemas screens this month,

Origin takes us on the complex journey undertaken by Wilkerson, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, as she begins to uncover events in history that have been, in the words of DuVernay, inset below, “kept secret from so many people”.

As she’s doing this, Wilkerson is experiencing deep loss and deep love in her own life which begins to inform the way that she sees the world anew. Juxtaposed with Wilkerson’s fascinatingly compelling personal story,

Origin attempts to address the multiplex that is the confluence and connecting tissue that binds and underpins some of the historical traumas experienced by Black people, Jewish people and Indian people.

It’s explored in a way this journalist hasn’t seen before. It’ll be an emotional watch for many, enlightening for all.

“I read the book and was intrigued by it,” DuVernay said when asked about how the Origin project came to life.

“I didn’t quite understand it in the way that I wanted to. Which was for it to be more personal as opposed to kind of an intellectual anthropological thesis.

“I wanted to really know it, and so I read it again and at some point in that second reading, when I had the light bulb moment of understanding truly what caste is, as a person to person concept as opposed to an academic concept, I felt like it was urgent to somehow try to share the information outside of the book.”

A renowned filmmaker, screenwriter, film and television producer in her own right, there something apt and fitting about the fact that DuVernay took this project on.

She admits to feeling a similar compelling feeling to “take some of the information that was in the books, and try to put it in an easy, more easily digestible mass, consumer art form”, in a similar way in which she did when “reading books about mass criminalisation and the history of it years ago”, prior to making the popular Netflix documentary film 13th in 2016.

“The movie is all my favourite moments from the book where I was like ‘dang’,” DuVernay explained.

“When I read the part about the fact that Nazis studied the way that white America treated Black America, that they actually came here, studied our brutality, took it back, debated about it and decided that there were some things that were too much, but, ‘we could keep these things’. And that’s part of the basis and bedrock of the holocaust, some of the protocols that govern the Holocaust.

“Mind blowing! I’m dogearing the pages. I’m highlighting that up a storm in my book. I’m putting that in the movie right.”

Excellence and a dedication to it runs through the creation and delivery of Origin . The trait is embodied, clearly by DuVernay as her work over the years suggests, but also with regards to Wilkerson, right , and Ellis-Taylor.

A staunchly devoted journalist and award-winning author, it took 15 years for Wilkerson to write Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

Speaking on the experience of working with her to fuse together the ‘Aha’ moments, DuVernay had during her reading of the book, she enthused: “

It took two years of interviews with Isabel Wilkerson, where she was generous enough to tell me about (herself). Because her parts of the movie are not in the book. The book is only about caste. The movie is about her writing the book, Caste .” 

She added: “I interviewed her about her process of writing. How did you get to India? Who did you talk to, to do the research? What does research look like for you? What do you do when you go to a museum? How do you talk to librarians? Tell me about your husband.

“How did he inspire you? Okay, your mom. Oh, my goodness, tell me about Marion.

“And all of that personal story was written side by side with the ‘Aha moments’, and then I braided them together, and that was the screenplay.”

Delivering powerfully emotional scene after scene, DuVernay wasn’t shy about lauding Ellis-Taylor for the execution of the role “Working with her is, it’s an intense process,” she explained.

“She’s an actor unlike any that I’ve worked with before, and I’ve worked with many over the past decade and a half of directing films. She has an intense laser focus that is kind of unshakeable.

“I won’t say it was hard, but it was a different process to kind of get inside of her process.

“She’s not closed off. She’s not difficult to work with. She’s just so locked in. And she’s not locked in a way where she’s not flexible. She just comes on the set like an assassin.

“She knows the target. She’s ready, and she’s going to talk with you about it. She’s gonna ask questions. She’s gonna take direction, but she never loses the focus of ‘that’s where I’m going’. That’s what I’m trying to hit.

“It’s a rigorous process. But it’s one that produces the kind of results that she produces, which are exceptional.”

The work of all three women central to this film being delivered is exceptional. Lifestyle implores you to go and see for yourselves.