Writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature film debut A THOUSAND AND ONE, which was released in theaters today, is simultaneously a love letter to “hood mamas” and a heartbreak letter to New York City.

In A THOUSAND ONE, multi-hyphenate Teyana Taylor plays Inez de la Paz, a woman who has probably never known peace but desires it and a family. Inez and her son Terry (played by Aaron Kinglsey Adetola, Aven Courtney, and Josiah Cross at various ages) essentially hide in plain sight in Harlem after she kidnaps him from foster care. We learn early in the film that Inez has been incarcerated several times and also spent her childhood in the foster care system, which permanently separated her from her sister. Therefore, we understand the desperation she feels to reunite her family and not force Terry to “Say Bye” once again. However, systemic issues and policy changes in the NYC of the late 1990s and early ’00s not only change the culture of her beloved Harlem, but also force her little family into a constant state of panic that their secret will be revealed.

“I think that I knew that I wanted a New York City woman,” said Rockwell when discussing the actress she wanted to cast as Inez in A THOUSAND AND ONE. “I think I wanted somebody who honored New York City women. I wanted somebody who honored inner-city women, particularly, because not every Black woman has the same experience. And I wanted this to be about women in the ways that I wanted to lift that particular group of women up within our community.”

It’s difficult to envision someone else playing Inez, but Rockwell says she was initially apprehensive about casting Taylor, who also grew up in Harlem, because the filmmaker wasn’t aware of her acting range. Taylor had previously appeared in her own music videos and those of other musical artists, as well more lighter fare, including Coming 2 America and Miracles Across 125th Street.

“I was looking for somebody that reminded me of home, reminded me of Harlem and just reminded me of the hood mamas, you know, the ‘around away girls’ that Inez represents, and I think it was also important to me that whoever played Inez, it didn’t come off as performative,” explained Rockwell. 

She continued, “You felt like (Taylor) felt the compassion, the empathy for this character. She knew this woman in real life, she identified with her. She was this woman in real life. And so you felt that she was with her and could dignify her instead of looking down on her, and that was so tremendously important to me.

“So, I think I got that with Teyana. […] By Inez being such a complicated character, I felt how well (Taylor) understood the psychology of this woman and the colors and shades to her, just who she is as a human being.”

If you grew up in a Black or Brown neighborhood in Any City, USA, you’re likely very familiar with the “hood mama.” She’s the “around the way girl” who grew into a matriarch. She’s the mom who is always watching the block to keep kids playing on the sidewalk safe from danger, including the cops who rarely look like the people they’re policing. She keeps up with the latest slang and fashion, beauty, and hair trends. In fact, she can probably coif your hair in her kitchen better than any trained stylist can in a salon. And she knows how to “make a dollar out of 15 cents.” Basically, the hood mama is a survivor intent on creating a better life for her family and community. However, the hood mama doesn’t work alone and often has a network made up of likeminded women, like Inez’s best friend Kim Jones (Terri Abney) and Miss Annie (Adriane Lenox).

Inez has the same goals as any mother, maintain her family, which includes Will Catlett’s Lucky, and give her child a better future than she had. But she’s working against a city with housing inequality, gentrification, policing, unemployment, and systemic racism as its weapons to routinely test their stability. Employing memories from her upbringing and research, Rockwell seamlessly marries the tribulations of Inez and Terry with the policy changes that occurred in New York City around the turn of the century. Helped along by the mayorships of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, whose speeches are used as soundbites in the film, the city morphs into the expensive Disneyland that born and raised New Yorkers like Inez and Terry can’t afford. In one scene, Rockwell reminds us of how the mom and pop businesses and street vendors on Harlem’s storied 125th Street were replaced with mass retailers under the guise of improving the quality of life in the area.

“My understanding of what was happening in the city politically, systemically, and culturally (and) how they all tied into what the journey of my childhood was, as well as the characters, who are very vulnerable as they fight for what is so important for them — stability, a sense of family — and all of the things that were in play to try to pull them apart and try to pull our communities apart, and erase and push us out altogether,” said Rockwell. “And I think the movie does that. And, I think that I was really trying to really establish that firmly. What was New York during that time? What were the nuances? I made it special and I made a specific. So that over the course of the movie, as their relationship evolves and goes through complicated changes, you can see the personality of the city changing as well, in the way a lot of that original spirit and spiciness is being drained away.”

As the spirit of Harlem is depleted, so is that of Inez, who goes from being loud, brash, and forceful to a less flashy and quiet, maybe defeated, version of herself. 

While some may bill A THOUSAND AND ONE as an indictment of gentrification, Rockwell says it addresses so much more.

“I think you see the beginnings of gentrification and how it starts to reshape Harlem and how that impacts the community that’s been there, and so I think that’s the part of it,” said Rockwell. “But it was also important to see all these other changes, culturally and policy-wise and systemically, to New York, because all of that set the stage. […] Like what was happening with ‘stop and frisk,’ that was also big in the ‘90s. […] Lucky acknowledges the way he feels like he’s targeted as a man that’s from Harlem.”

Rockwell continued, “I think it’s so much easier to take advantage of them, in the ways that people are in this movie, when there’s so much stacked against them. The way all these things make it overwhelming just to maintain what you have, which is that home, which is that sense of family.”

Terry also grows more vulnerable as he ages into a Black man “in the city that is constantly trying to make a target out of him and his community.”

Although Inez has lost nearly every battle with NYC, she remains hopeful that there will be a place for them as the city improves. Rockwell says, that’s why there’s never any discussion of her leaving Harlem, despite the constant betrayal from the city. 

“I think (A THOUSAND AND ONE is) a heartbreak letter to the city, but you know you can’t have heartbreak without having the love in the first place,” Rockwell noted.

She continued, “And that’s what makes the story all the more devastating, because you see how connected these people are. It’s such a specific New York City story. And you see how intrinsic the culture and the world of New York is. How it impacts how they move through the world, and what their experiences are, and how hopeful they are […] Even though it’s rough and tough in the beginning of the movie, it still was accessible to everybody.”

Rockwell acknowledges that the tampering of Harlem’s soul not only affects its residents and New Yorkers, in general, but also the Black community at large.

“I think, in terms of how the movie unpacks how the Black community, especially a neighborhood like Harlem, relates to New York City altogether and the price of that. I think especially with a neighborhood like Harlem — that means so much, not only to New Yorkers, but also to Black identity and to our heritage and to American history, in general — to see it washed away without question. It’s just the way that it is being stripped of what actually made it so specific and made it so special as a neighborhood, just to become a little bit more, like everywhere else, I think you really see the price of that in this film.”