Still Here

In February 2020, with the edit still unfinished, Blue Fox Entertainment bought worldwide rights to 'Still Here' at the Berlin market. It was Vlad Feier's first feature, written with Peter Gutter and shot entirely in New York. Its producers pitched it plainly as an attempt to put a spotlight on missing children, and what came out is a crime drama that moves between a newsroom and a Brooklyn block.

Christian Baker reports for The Chronicle and he's been handed the assignment nobody wants: the disappearance of Monique Watson, a twelve-year-old Black girl. He deals with it in a phone call and the first lead he's offered, checking almost nothing, and that shortcut comes back on him. Monique's family keeps putting up flyers while the police investigation drags, and her father, Michael, makes no secret of his distrust of officers who barely return his calls.

Guilt is what finally makes Christian do the job properly. He goes back to the neighbourhood, listens to the Watsons and learns that a cab driver vanished the same day the girl did, so the story turns into a search against the clock where the reporter counts for as much as the detective. Along the way, 'Still Here' stops on the part that rarely makes the news: the slow wearing down of a family that waits, and the feeling that the case would have run differently with another surname and another postcode.

The cast is led by Johnny Whitworth, of 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance' and 'CSI: Miami', and by Maurice McRae as the father, the performance almost every critic singled out. Around them are Afton Williamson from 'The Rookie', Larry Pine, Jeremy Holm from 'House of Cards', and Zazie Beetz, Van in 'Atlanta', in a far smaller appearance than her billing suggests.

Filming took in Brooklyn and Long Island, with cinematography by Ana Paula Rivera, who produced as well, and a score by Jeff Kryka. It reached a handful of American screens on 28 August 2020, while cinemas were still running at half speed because of the pandemic, and went to video on demand a week later, never reaching British cinemas. Reviews were mostly harsh: critics granted the subject and McRae's work, then faulted the script for its lack of nuance.

• Crime
• Drama