Premiering a Bigger Wigger

Most days of the week, Dr. Omowale Akintunde is known simply as the Chair of the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Black Studies Department, a post he has occupied since 2008. But tonight, at a screening for his educational institution's three-day Malcolm X Conference and Festival, he will also be presiding as the writer-director of Wigger, a feature-length expansion of a short thesis film Akintunde made while attending the New York Film Academy.


The title, which is indeed a play on the dreaded N-word, refers to young Caucasian protagonist Brandon (David Oakes), whose R&B singer aspirations lead him deep into African-American culture and far away from the reprehensible tenets of a Neo-Nazi father. Akintunde says his tale of what it means to be white in African-American culture represents the culmination of his aspirations as both an academic and filmmaker.

[Wigger]