“Don’t tell Kim” is key to understanding Dayveon’s inner conflict. His older sister isn’t supposed to find out about the dodgy goings-on the thirteen-year-old has got himself caught up in; he only confides in her boyfriend, Bryan. Bryan has offered himself to Dayveon as a kind of substitute for his brother, whose death was linked to his gang membership. And now Dayveon and his best friend Brayden have themselves joined the Bloods.
Amman Abbasi has worked as a documentary filmmaker, as the coordinator of the Little Rock Film Festival and as an assistant to David Gordon Green; with his brother Yousuf, he’s also had success as a musician and composer. Dayveon is the feature debut of this multitalented 28-year-old; he wrote the screenplay, acted as editor and producer and also composed the music. Filmed in classic Academy format, the film combines sun-drenched images of the American South, eerie night scenes, suggestive nature shots (a swarm of bees is a recurring motif) and the family’s cramped home into a dense portrait of a life on the periphery, constantly teetering between tenderness and brutality, poetry and realism.