Janicza Bravo To Helm ‘Kindred,’ The Upcoming Octavia E. Butler Adaptation

Janicza Bravo (Zola, Lemon) is set to direct and executive produce the FX adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s celebrated 1979 science fiction novel Kindred, Deadline reports. 

Newcomer Mallori Johnson has been cast as the main character, Dana, for the television series.

Kindred follows Dana’s journey as an aspiring writer who leaves her constricted familial life behind to chase her dreams in Los Angeles. Briefly after her arrival, however, she finds herself being forcefully pulled back and forth in time to a nineteenth-century plantation where she and her family are intimately linked in shocking ways. There’s an interracial romance that is woven through the past and present, and Dana must wrestle the piercing secrets within her family before time runs out. 

The writers for Kindred include Branden Jacob-Jenkins (Watchmen), Darren Aronofsky, Courtney Lee-Mitchell, Joe Weisberg (The Americans), and Joel Fields. 

Speaking with Deadline, Bravo reflected on the opportunity to direct the adaptation for such an influential and groundbreaking novel. “I first read Kindred 20 years ago. I was in college. I hadn’t ever seen myself in a world like that. And certainly not at its center,” she said. “What might seem like only a portrait of an invisible woman is also a potent embrace of our relationship to history and how it can bring us closer to our future. After what felt like losing over a year of the life I had come to know so well, an opportunity to direct an adaptation of this specific text was a win. On top of that, getting to partner with Branden is something I’d been wanting for quite some time.”

Production is planned to kick off in September.