Emmy winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will play a charismatic Ghanaian musician in the ambitious six-episode limited series.
Director Blitz Bazawule continues to build an award-winning resume in his career with his latest project, The Scent of Burnt Flowers, by adding Emmy winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in a starring role.
A six-episode limited series based on his upcoming novel of the same name, The Scent of Burnt Flowers is being distributed from Charles D. King’s Macro Television Studios and Bazawule’s production banner Inward Gaze. The synopsis would find Yayha’s character, Kwesi, immersed in the intertwined dark chapters of American and African history with a “magical realist lens,” according to Deadline.
Set in the 1960’s, The Scent of Burnt Flowers is an otherworldly experience that infuses fantastical elements like military coups, mermaids, and love triangles into what’s being billed as a “geopolitical fugitive thriller with a magical realist lens.” The story follows Melvin and Bernadette, a Black American couple on the run, who lean on Abdul-Mateen’s Kwesi to preserve their freedom.
Bazawule wrote and directed the award-winning feature film The Burial of Kojo, which is still streaming on Netflix, and co-directed Beyoncé’s Disney+ visual album, Black Is King. The Ghanaian multihyphenate was also tapped by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones, and Scott Sanders to direct the musical feature adaptation of The Color Purple, which is slated to go into production in early 2022.
Up next for Yahya Abudl-Mateen II is Emergency Contact, an action thriller he is also executive producing alongside Dwayne Johnson for Warner Bros. He will also star in The Matrix 4 and Jordan Peele’s Candyman, the latter which arrives in theaters and streaming services later this year.
