If You Can’t Stand the Heat… Kibwe Tavares Pulls a Heist with Daniel Kaluuya in Dystopian “The Kitchen”

British helmer Kibwe Tavares is finally gearing up for his feature film debut reteaming with actor (and here co-writer) Daniel Kaluuya on the London set dystopian drama The Kitchen. The Netflix backed project (they pegged this as a 2023 release) sees Kaluuya topline with Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman is set to play co-lead Benji. The project was part of the 2016 January Screenwriters Lab (other features included The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Nina, Share, The Wolf Hour) and is based on an idea from Kaluuya (who produces) — it was co-written along with Joe Murtagh and Daniel Emmerson (who also produces). Tavares got his start at Sundance with the 2012’s Robots of Brixton. Michael Fassbender and Conor McCaughan board the project as executive producers. Kaluuya has previously acted in Tavares’ short films.

Gist: “The Kitchen’ is set in London, 2044, a future where the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits,” reads the logline. “All forms of social housing have been eradicated and London’s working classes have been forced to live in temporary accommodation on the outskirts of the city, The Kitchen is the first and the largest of its kind, it’s London’s last village harbouring residents that refuse to move on and move out of the place they call home. It’s here we meet Izi, a resident of the kitchen who is desperately trying to find a way out and 12-year-old, Benji, who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they battle to survive in a system that is stacked against them.”