District (2017)

Anthony Bawn (nee Newsome) created an interesting, no budget TV series last year that was streamed on what his company describes as the only black-owned, LGBTQ service on the web. District, which is now playing as a single hour-long piece on Amazon, explores the intersections of blackness, maleness and sexuality in an original context, IMO -- labor exploitation among black men in Atlanta. The series / film stars Brandon Anthony, the most polished of the half-dozen men in the cast, whose character, Miller, is an elaborately tattooed, under-employed hustler of sorts who is preyed upon by his occasional lover Jayvon, a homeless drug addict who nonetheless rocks a swimmer's build. One of Miller's generous "friends" introduces him to a secretive cartel of black construction contractors called the Brotherhood, from whom he learns that strings are attached to everything. The film suffers from uneven performances from cast members (all of the men are out-acted by Tami Roman as Miller's straight-talking, imprisoned mother), poor sound editing and mixing, and a curious narrative voice-over from Miller that's distorted to sound like anonymous witness testimony.