THE KILLING FLOOR

Bill DUKE
  • 2021
  • Cannes Classics
  • Tribute

Screened in the 1985 Semaine de la Critique, this Sundance Award-winning drama was directed by Bill Duke as his first feature from a screenplay by producer-filmmaker Elsa Rassbach and the renowned Black dramatist Leslie Lee. Based on actual events and characters, the film’s story is told by Frank Custer (Damien Leake), a southern Black migrant working on the “kill floor” of a giant Chicago slaughterhouse in World War I. While struggling to bring his wife (Alfre Woodard) and children “up north”, Frank joins with European immigrant workers in a pioneering effort to build the first interracial union in the Stockyards but must confront rising racial and ethnic tensions — stoked by management and culminating in the notorious Chicago “race riot” of 1919– as he attempts to unite the workers.

Directed by : Bill DUKE
Year of production: 1985
Country: United States
Duration: 118 minutes

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