Origin premiered in competition at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 6, 2023, and began a limited theatrical release on January 19, 2024, by Neon.
Grappling with tremendous personal tragedy, writer Isabel Wilkerson sets herself on a path of global investigation and discovery as she writes Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
Similarly, although Jews of European descent may have been considered "white" in some parts of the world, in Nazi Germany they were defined as an inferior race to be exterminated.
Wilkerson chats at a cocktail party with two white women who are friendly, but do not fully understand her ideas of how different types of bigotry interrelate.
Intertwined with her ideas and discoveries, Wilkerson suffers the loss of her husband Brett, a white man; her elderly mother Ruby; and her cousin Marion.
[8] After Netflix was no longer attached and other studios passed, DuVernay turned to financing from Ford Foundation, Emerson Collective and Pivotal Ventures, among others.
[9] In January 2023, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Niecy Nash-Betts, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Nick Offerman and Connie Nielsen joined the cast of the film.
[10][11] In February 2023, Audra McDonald, Myles Frost, Blair Underwood, Victoria Pedretti, Isha Blaaker, Finn Wittrock, Leonardo Nam and Donna Mills joined the cast of the film.
[15] Origin had its world premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 6, 2023,[16] where it was in competition for the Golden Lion award, and received a standing ovation for more than eight minutes.
The website's consensus reads: "A moving drama that's unafraid to ask big questions, Origin honors its source material with powerful performances in service of a deeply emotional story.
[30] Several critics directed particular praise to the scene where Isabel meets Miss Hale (played by Audra McDonald), which Richard Brody of The New Yorker described as "powerful"[38] and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post as the film's "most heartbreaking passage".