David Fortune’s film “Color Book” was selected for a worldwide premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. This is the culmination of the Morehouse College alum’s 2023 win of AT&T’s Untold Stories program, where he received a $1 million prize to produce his feature film.
The director told ESSENCE he was inspired to write “Color Book,” after graduating from Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television with his M.F.A. in 2018, “I just really wanted to see an intimate portrait of a Black father and a son. One thing I’m always big on is creating what I want to see. I recognized that oftentimes people within the disability community’s stories weren’t being told from the Black perspective, and those two ideas start to merge with one another.”
In “Color Book” after the death of his wife, a bereaved widower confronts his new life as a single father to a child with Down syndrome who “finds solace in his color book and the shared love of baseball with his dad. Together, they set off on a poignant journey across Metro Atlanta to attend their first baseball game, a trip that will change their lives forever.”
In a bold creative choice, Fortune made the film in black and white as a part of his decision to center the characters. “I really wanted to highlight this relationship between a father raising his son, and black and white leads you into the characters rather than the world that’s behind them.” After the film was finished, Fortune revealed that it reminded him of an old photo album.
“I remember after we finished pitching, and thinking whether you win or lose, it doesn’t matter because you created an impactful moment for people to experience. My heart was pulsating [while waiting for the announcement], and when he said ‘Color Book,’ everything went silent. It was so cinematic. I looked at my producers and hugged them, feeling like all the hard work that went into making and preparing for the pitch all paid off. After we learned that we won, it was a game changer because now I had a chance to make the film that I wanted to see coming out of film school, and there’s no greater pleasure than that,” said Fortune.
After winning came the hard work, but Fortune was extremely grateful. Sometimes, it can take from five to seven years to get to the point where a movie gets made, and that doesn’t even take into account distribution and ensuring viewers are able to see the film. In Fortune’s case, he had less than a year to turn around his project and it was not without challenges. Given the WGA and SAG strikes last year, Fortune faced many delays and wasn’t able to start filming until the end of January. With a May deadline in order to screen the following month at Tribeca, Fortune and his team had to make a feature film production, including editing, sound, design, and color in less than five months.
Opportunities like AT&T’s Untold Stories program are unique for filmmakers of color because many Black filmmakers face obstacles trying to tell the stories they would like to see about their community. “When you are a rising or up-and-coming filmmaker are especially trying to tell your stories, you need a program that’s going to support you,” explained Fortune when discussing the importance of AT&T’s Untold Stories program.
Along with the monetary prize, Untold Stories also provides an invaluable year-long “mentorship program that connects rising, historically underrepresented filmmakers to greater possibilities by empowering them with the necessary resources and support they need to bring their unique stories to life.”
“They’re just not giving you the million dollars and then walking away and you don’t know what to do with the money. They’re step by step walking you through the process of ‘what resources do you need to help make your film?’ and that’s why it’s important to have that mentorship aspect of it because for filmmakers like myself, this was my first time doing a feature film,” Fortune stated.
So not only did Fortune’s mentors provide guidance so that he could make this film, he also received invaluable knowledge that will prepare him when embarking on his second, third and fourth films. Fortune believes this program was about more than this project—it will help him for the rest of his career.