Caleb azumh nelson on his
debut short, pray
Caleb Azumah Nelson
After he finished writing his debut novel Open Water, Caleb Azumah Nelson was worried that he had used up all his literary talent. “When I finished it, I was like, ‘that’s it, the well’s dry.’” To see if he could prove himself wrong, he began working on a short story inspired by a real-life encounter he’d had. As it turned out, the well was overflowing.
Pray was shortlisted for a BBC National Short Story Award and forms the basis of Azumah Nelson’s directorial debut short film of the same name. Shot on film in black and white, it tells the story of two brothers as they grieve the death of their parents.
We first meet Christopher (David Jonsson) and his younger brother, Junior (Lamar Waves), as they’re hanging out with friends in the backyard. We move indoors, where everyone’s getting loose on the dance floor in someone’s living room. Suddenly, the music cuts out and Christopher’s whole demeanor shifts. Anger rises to the surface like a tsunami. Everyone pauses, the atmosphere crackling with awkwardness. After the party’s over, Junior sees Christopher crying and praying through a crack in his bedroom door, begging for redemption. Later, more dancing, more joy, laughter, peppered with moments of quiet reflection and brewing teenage love.
Azumah Nelson’s unique skill is in his simple and gentle portrayal of the complexity of feeling. The film opens and closes with scenes of joy, filled in with sadness, pain, extreme anger, fear, love and other, unnameable emotions—and it’s less than 20 minutes long.
By Molly Lipson
This article was originally published in Dirt on 11 March 2024 and edited by Daisy Alioto and Walden Green.
Molly Lipson: Where did the idea for Pray come from?
Caleb Azumah Nelson: One night I was walking home and this guy was coming at me really fast. I could see that his whole vision was clouded with some emotion, and when he got closer, he looked really angry. He knocked into me, and it seemed to lift something from him. Suddenly, he was like, “are you okay? I'm really sorry”. He even picked me up—and I'm a big guy!
In that moment, I saw this flash of whatever anger had been bubbling up in him fall away and there was just a sadness that remained. I kept thinking about that switch, and that's where the characters of the brothers were born for me. I was thinking about what happens when people experience grief and the emotions that they go through. But I also really wanted to write this story about finding freedom from grief in a community.
“In that moment, I saw this flash of whatever anger had been bubbling up in him fall away and there was just a sadness that remained.”
ML: Why did you want to turn the short story into a short film?
CAN: A woman called Rose Garnett—who used to be head of BBC Films, and is now at A24—sat me down and told me that she loved my books, and that she thought I’d be a great director. I thought, “what's the catch, what's happening?” But she was genuine, and getting that permission really set my mind ablaze. Rose asked me: “So you've announced yourself as a writer and a novelist—what would it look like for you to announce yourself as a filmmaker?” She asked me to delve into my artistic voice, but using the visual medium, and immediately things began to fall into place. I could almost see the short as we were talking about it.
ML: You’re also a photographer—was Pray a way to blend together your two main artistic mediums?
CAN: Yeah. Actually, writing Open Water was a step in that direction for me, because so much of that process was either writing from images or writing from imagined images. I knew that writing film was going to take it a step further, and it was a really nice opportunity for me to ask myself how I could find a way of giving my visual language a literary quality, rather than the other way around.
ML: Why did you decide to shoot on black and white film?
CAN: Aside from the fact that it just looks amazing, for me it removes all the distractions and allows me to center the emotions of the story. It also gives it a sense of nostalgia; I really want Pray to feel like you're in someone's recent memory. Also—the detail that you get with the grain, how you can find ways of pushing in on people's features, and the pops and surprises that you get with film as well.
ML: Did you get any pushback on that decision?
CAN: I remember Rose asked just once if I was sure, and that was it. [The producers at] B-Side films asked if I wanted to shoot on film, I said yes, and they said “whatever you want to do, we’ll fight for you”—and they really did. My cinematographer [Korsshan Schlauer] lost his mind when he found out. For us, the limitations really opened things up. We had enough film for maybe five or six takes of each shot, but aside from one nightmarish shot, we got everything in two or three.
ML: How do you navigate trying to get so many different emotions and themes into one place, whether it's in your novels or your film?
CAN: I’ve got a really good therapist…So much of what I'm trying to do with my work is bridge the gap between emotion and expression. A lot of the time when I'm writing or directing, I'm asking everyone around me to push in as close to the feeling as possible, and that requires a real degree of trust both of myself and when I’m working with other people to lead them towards that point.
I remember the scene where Christopher blows up in the middle of the party. I don't think [David and I] were apprehensive, but we understood that it was a really big emotion, an explosion because of the grief he was experiencing. We shot that two or three times, and each time we would take David to the side and just hold him for a moment. I could really feel him shaking. So much of it is me being aware of what I'm asking of people and then asking them how I can hold them through that process.
ML: The film premiered at Locarno Film Festival—what’s next for Pray and for you?
CAN: Yes, and we also showed it at London Film Festival, and then at London Short Film Festival, which was great. I want to keep screening it and try to get as many community screenings as possible because the reception that I've had from people that have watched it and seen a version of themselves in the film has been really humbling. It’s a very different experience from writing a book and knowing someone's read it—there's something more immediate about being at a screening, and then someone comes up to you to chat to you about it. I’m currently working on a feature film—a couple, actually—but one that’s really moving forwards. And then I’m also working on the TV adaptations of both my novels.
I’ve recently had to allow myself to congratulate myself for doing this and be like, “it really is a thing to have to go from one medium to the other.” I wish that there were a lot more of us who did it. As artists, I think we should be able to find ways of allowing ourselves to channel whatever expression that we need to via whatever medium we need to at that current moment, and not be afraid when you feel the call towards something else.