Joy Dickson is a very determined person. One gets the feeling that it’s her sense of purposefulness that gets things accomplished as much as it is the strength of her ideas. A Nigerian immigrant who moved to Austin to be with her husband 11 years ago, Dickson has a professional background in the performing arts. However, two children and one online filmmaking class later, she has not let her lack of extensive experience stand in the way of writing and directing a feature film (although she did make a feature in Africa more than 15 years ago and an experimental short in Austin about eight years ago).
Between Kings & Queens was filmed last summer on locations in Downtown Austin and is making its world premiere this Sunday night at the Paramount Theatre. The film is a romantic drama about an African prince who escapes his royal duties for a time and experiences life incognito in the United States. He gets on the wrong side of the neighborhood drug dealers and falls in love with the ex-girlfriend of the ringleader. If it sounds as though Eddie Murphy already made this movie a while back, you may be on to something – but Between Kings & Queens is not a comedy. “I am not a funny person,” Dickson admits during a phone conversation. “I just wanted to convey a message without being too serious. There’s this wall between Africans and African-Americans in terms of how they perceive one another, which doesn’t make sense to me. I tried to figure out why they reason like they do. Although I wrote the story eight, nine years ago, the essence of this was to enlighten people.”
Casting her leads was serendipitous. “I stumbled into Nakia Burrise on the Internet Movie Database,” says Dickson of her lead actress, whose credits include the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. “I called and talked to her, and I was really pleased with the conversation, so I arranged to meet with her. DaJuan Johnson was recommended to me by a casting agent. Jim Iyake, who was playing the womanizer, is well-known all over Africa. He’s a superstar there. So I called him and asked if he would be interested in doing this and he said sure.” Most of the rest of the actors Dickson cast from the Central Texas area.
The most expensive item in this low-budget production’s ledger sheets may be that phone call to Iyake in Nigeria, but it got the job done. “I have to do what I have to do,” Dickson says. “Coming from where I do, it doesn’t just come to you. You have to go get whatever you need to go get.”
Between Kings & Queens premieres Sunday, May 2, at 6pm at the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress) with cast and crew in attendance. For more info, visit www.betweenkingsandqueens.com.
This article appears in April 30 • 2010.
