Downsized, TV One’s original film starring husband and wife duo Boris Kodjoe (Code Black, Undercovers) and Nicole Ari Parker (Almost Christmas, Time After Time), will premiere on Saturday, September 16 at 9 p.m. ET. The film, written by the 2016 TV One American Black Film Festival Screenplay Competition finalist Michelle McKissic, made its world premiere at this year’s festival held in June in Miami.
In Downsized, Kodjoe and Parker portray Michael and Ebony, high school sweethearts who were forced into marriage by their parents after a teen pregnancy. Fast forward 25 years and four children later, and Michael and Ebony typify the modern family – successful careers, beautiful home and all the trappings of success. To the world, they appear to have it all. Yet, the rewards that success has brought them have instead driven the family further apart from each other.
Michael and Ebony have reached a crossroads in their marriage and are ready to carry out their plan to go their separate ways following their eldest daughter’s graduation from law school. However, Michael has a change of heart. Hoping to reignite the spark that first brought them together, he whisks the family away for a month-long vacation, returning to their first home in the countrysideto unplug and reconnect with one another. The trip becomes a journey of self-discovery for Michael and Ebony, as well as their children. Will the couple that appears to have it all on the surface discover that everything they really want, they already have?
Downsized also stars Alix Lapri, (Red Band Society, Reed Between The Lines), Isaiah John (Snowfall, Saints & Sinners), Racquel Bianca John (Born Again Virgin, Justice By Any Means), and Tia Hendricks (Bessie, Under The Dome). The film is directed by Rhonda Baraka, written by Michelle McKissic, and produced for TV One by Roger M. Bobb and Angi Bones of Bobbcat Films.
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