Brown, produced and distributed through Lightwood Studios. Set in Atlanta, the film follows
Flex (The Chi’s Ashton Hutchinson) reuniting with his childhood best friends (Truman Chamberlin
and Julliard’s Nijal Morgan) as they negotiate freedom and agency within emerging adulthood. Alexia Bryan
and Ella-Grace Wolfe co-star.
Lightwood’s first film, Fly adopts a verité shooting style, drawing inspiration from the
ephemerality in the 2016 limited-edition magazine Boys Don’t Cry and the 2018 documentary Minding the Gap.
It also references Italian Neorealist cinema, drawing parallels between the movement’s socioeconomic commentary and
Flex, Boots, and Dizzy’s plights under the modern-day societal constraints of capitalism and white supremacy.
Emotional responses of nostalgia, realism, and idealism in the wake of these hardships form the thematic core of Fly.
Brown adapted the film from a feature-length screenplay conceived during production of “Directions Not Included,”
reworking the narrative across travels to Germany, the Netherlands, and France during Summer of 2022; upon
researching cultural archives in Brixton, he began to incorporate the concept of decoloniality into the story’s framework.
The initial concept behind 2024’s EYES EYES EYES EYES was also devised during these sessions. Lightwood announced
a codenamed project for their 2023 slate that Fall, wrapping principal photography by November.
Following a series of post-production delays, See How We Fly premiered with a red carpet event at Peabody Hall on
November 9, 2023, being released on Lightwood’s YouTube channel a day later. The film received positive reviews from
audiences, who lauded the writing, performances, character development, cinematography, and use
of color theory. FLYradio, a companion playlist curated in collaboration with Earthtones, was released on November 8.
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