Jimmie Fails has a complicated life. His parents are drug-addicts and he has had his fair share of trouble with the law. Despite everything, he’s proud of his city, San Francisco, and of the Victorian house that his grandfather built and that is now part of a wealthy neighborhood with a mostly white population. With his friend Montgomery, who has humbly welcomed him into his house, he goes to see the house everyday and even repairs the facade, hiding from the married couple that live in it. Afterwards, the two buddies skate through the city they love so much and observe the differences between its various neighborhoods, extreme wealth clashing with inexorable decadence. When the owners of the Victorian house have to vacate it, Jimmie will try to get it back at all cost. But his own environment will be the first element to make things difficult for him.
Both vindictive and strange, physical and dreamy, raw and inevitably sentimental, Joe Talbot’s debut film has been one of the greatest surprises of the indie-film scene. It tells the story of these two black friends, their families, their street-smart group of friends, and of those who want but cannot leave some things behind. It also tells the story of their desires: for one, the house that his grandfather built and the premiere of a play for the other. Above all else, it’s a love letter (and sometimes, of hate, because as the film states: “You don’t get to hate it unless you love it”) to the cinematographic city of Frisco. The Last Black Man in San Francisco caught the attention of the public, and won over festivals and specialized critics, receiving the Special Jury Award at Sundance and a multitude of film awards from American critics.
