’s “We Grown Now,” which bowed Sept. 8 at TIFF, follows Malik and Eric , two 12-year-old boys living in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project. It’s 1992 and the boys have loving homes overzealous and racist police, crime and an unthinkable tragedy burst through their childhood bubble. Malik’s hard-working mother and grandmother can’t protect Malik from the rest of the world.
Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez give spectacular performances. How did you find these actors?It was a very long casting process that started, I would say, a year and a half before we started filming. And we had, we were aided by Aisha Coley, who I had actually learned later on that she had cast “Crooklyn,” which was one of my favorite films and a great reference for me.
What I was looking for in the kids for this film was that they really needed to have their distinct personalities. They have full dialogue scenes. They’re very engaged and there’s many scenes where there are no adults, and so I really needed them to carry the movie.