Coming soon to the screen: Fever is a psyche-thriller written by and starring Jeremy Feight. The film also stars the legendary Janet Hubert (best known for playing the role of the original Vivian Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”), Tony-award winning actress Alice Ripley, and actor and filmmaker, David J. Cork.
“I don’t want to be a slave to a Big Mac!” I can remember the first time I jokingly said that to someone. Unbeknownst to me, I already was, and had always been, controlled by the modern American food system.”
Following in the footsteps of films that challenge race relations through psychological drama and horror, Fever tells a story of a queer couple facing the realities of mental health issues and the weight of white supremacy on interracial relationships.
The film is currently in post production with plans to premiere in the festival circuit during the 2022 season. Their sights are set on Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca Film Festival. Our editor-in-chief, Attia Taylor, spoke to the crew of Fever about its origins, telling challenging and unheard stories, and building a community on set.
Attia: I'm a huge psych thriller fan-like LOVE psych thrillers, so I’m very excited to hear more about your new film! Can you tell me more about the film and the inspiration behind it?
Jeremy Feight: Cathy and I had been working on it for the longest together. It was the two of us tossing this around as a project while we were all operating full-speed ahead before COVID-19 happened. Cathy Ye, Meg Murthy, and I had worked on a short film together called Bolognese, over a year ago now, and while we were working on that I had started writing this script. It admittedly was born out of the anger from a breakup that had happened in my life. It was a really beautiful opportunity for me to take a look at myself and self-critique around the way that I was relating to my relationships, but also the way that I was relating to my privilege as a white man and the interracial relationships that I take part in professionally, romantically, sexually, etc.
I worked through that with Cathy and then we realized we needed to build out a team and so we brought on Meg Murthy and Chenney Chen, our lead producer, and then we hired Angele Cooper. And with our producer Daniel Calderon, we went into a more extensive rewrite process so I owe a lot of that to their insight.
