A struggling playwright finds inspiration by reinventing herself in Director Radha Blank’s comedic-drama, The Forty-Year-Old Version.
Blank also stars in the film as Radha, a down-on-her-luck New York City playwright, who is desperate for a breakthrough before 40. Reinventing herself as rapper RadhaMUSPrime, she vacillates between the worlds of Hip Hop and theater in order to find her true voice.
On February 20, Blank discussed the making of The Forty-Year-Old Version in a DGA Virtual Q&A moderated by Director Liesl Tommy (Respect).
During the conversation, Blank discussed how she had an opportunity to shine a light on the generation before her, who struggled artistically so she and others could be here in this moment. “I have so many favorite moments but the one I think that means the most to me is when I'm walking back to my mother's apartment and I walk in the door and the music you could hear is my father's jazz from his Melodic Art-Tet album. I walk in further and there's my mother's artwork on the walls. And that's my brother’s. So the film for me will always be this archive of like the Blank legacy and I feel like it's probably my proudest moment to be able to archive my family as artists.”
The Forty-Year-Old Version is Blank’s theatrical feature film directorial debut. She also directed the movie for television Sam Bowe: Speech Writer.
Blank has been a DGA member since 2019.
You can listen to Blank's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.
About the DGA Virtual Q&A Program
Mirroring the ever-popular DGA Membership Screening Q&A program in the virtual space, DGA Members can now learn more about films directly from the filmmakers in this series of livestreamed conversations.