Latest in Dee Rees

EXCLUSIVE: Dee Rees has been set to direct The Kyd’s Exquisite Follies, a musical fantasy based on her own original script. Rees’ previous film, 2017’s Mudbound, got four Oscar nominations including one for her adapted script, and her Bessie Smith HBO biopic Bessie got her two Emmy noms for writing and directing, with…

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has added Darren Aronofsky, Jake Gyllenhaal, Dee Rees, and Martin Scorsese as guest speakers for the 50th Anniversary Gala on Monday, April 29, 2019 in Alice Tully Hall. They will join previously announced Pedro Almodóvar, Marielle Heller, Tilda Swinton, and John Waters, who will…

Mudbound director Dee Rees has firmed a solid cast for her follow-up feature, The Last Thing He Wanted. Two-time Oscar winner Ben Affleck, Toby Jones, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, and Mel Rodriguez have joined the previously announced Anne Hathaway and Willem Dafoe in the film, which Netflix will release next…

UPDATED with video: Writer-director Dee Rees gave an electric speech while receiving the Robert Altman award for Mudbound at the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards. The Robert Altman award is presented to the ensemble cast, director and casting director of a film. It is named after director, screenwriter, and…

Writer-director Dee Rees, whose film Mudbound is a multi-category contender at Sunday’s Oscars, will also put her stamp on an entire 60-second block of the broadcast during a commercial break. Rees, along with Melissa McCarthy and Nancy Meyers, was picked by Walmart to direct a short spot on the theme of a shipping…

Leaping at the chance to portray '40s America with Dee Rees' post-war drama Mudbound, cinematographer Rachel Morrison was tasked with helping the director develop a beautifully gritty aesthetic for the film that felt appropriate for the era, developing a shooting strategy that was workable in extreme environmental…

Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway is in negotiations to star in Mudbound director Dee Rees’ political thriller, The Last Thing He Wanted. The story is based on the 1996 novel by Joan Didion and will be produced by Elevated’s Cassian Elwes. The Fyzz Facility’s Wayne Marc Godfrey and Robert Jones will produce and finance. Bloom…

“I didn't anticipate any of this,” Mudbound‘s Mary J. Blige told Deadline this morning, regarding her pair of Oscar nominations for the Netflix film. “I just knew I was part of a very powerful, important film, and I was happy to be a part of it.” In Dee Rees’ drama—based on a novel of the same name by Hillary…

On an Oscar nominations morning that saw a strong showing for women, Mudbound's Dee Rees has made some history of her own as the first African America woman ever to be nominated for Writing (Adapted Screenplay). Breaking another barrier today with Rachel Morrison becoming the first woman to receive a Best…

Mary J. Blige spends much of Dee Rees' southern tragedy Mudbound holding her tongue. As Florence Jackson, the matriarch of a sharecropper family continually bossed around by the white folks who own their land, she's swollen with words she's not allowed to say, starting with "No" to the McAllan jerk who's always…

An adaptation of the 2009 novel by Hillary Jordan, Mudbound tells a tale of a bond between a white and black family forged by the hardships of farm life in the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow era. That bond takes a fateful turn when the eldest sons of each family return from the horrors of WWII. The Netflix film…

“To the chagrin of my agent, usually I hate everything I read," Dee Rees told the audience at Deadline’s The Contenders event, which might explain why the director has maintained a relatively low profile since her 2011 Sundance hit Pariah. All that changed when indie producer Cassian Elwes sent her a script by Virgil…