As we near the halfway point of the decade thus far, there’s still no better documentary to arrive than one that premiered in the first month of the 2020s. Garrett Bradley’s Oscar-nominated poetic masterpiece Time follows Sibil Fox Richardson, who had been capturing footage of her family after her husband Robert Richardson was given a 60-year prison sentence. This archival material is woven into beautifully-shot footage from Bradley as she depicts the family’s struggle to battle the prison-industrial complex. Now, a documentary sequel is set to arrive next month.
Time II: Unfinished Business, directed by Sibil Fox Richardson and featuring footage from her 30-year-spanning archive, follows the couple in the next chapter of their ongoing journey of love and justice as they spearhead a deeply personal fight to free their nephew and fall partner. Set for a world premiere at Essence Festival next month, the first trailer has arrived which looks to shed the black-and-white aesthetic of the first film as the story continues.
“Since my release from prison in 2002, the belief that ‘to be free is to free others’ has been my guiding principle,” said the director in a statement via IndieWire, who premiered the trailer. “Through the power of storytelling, I aim to shed light on the struggles and biases faced by those within the criminal justice system, while exploring themes of personal transformation and the impact of love, family, and community in the life of the marginalized. By amplifying these narratives, we pave the way toward a more just and compassionate society. We invite you to join us on this transformative ride as Time II: Unfinished Business makes its world premiere, promising an experience that will resonate long after the credits roll.”
I said in my review, “The last two decades of a family ripped apart sets the stage for Garrett Bradley’s Time, a formally stunning masterwork of empathy, exhaustion, love, and rage. The title of Time isn’t just a reference to the sentence Rob was given. It’s every moment he’s deprived of as the world continues outside his cell. It’s what Fox and their family sacrifice in their daily struggle to get him out. It’s every instant that the system in power uses to make them wait for an answer. It’s a piece of something that they may be able to win back if Rob was to be released. And it’s a sense of timelessness in which the director captures it all with her black-and-white, symphonic approach, which melds the political and personal in overwhelmingly heartbreaking ways.”
See the trailer for the sequel below.
Bradley recently stopped by Nicolas Rapold’s The Last Thing I Saw and confirmed she’s still working on an adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower for A24. Listen below.
The post Garrett Bradley’s Time Gets Sequel with Time II: Unfinished Business: Watch the First Trailer first appeared on The Film Stage.
