WE GROWN NOW Trailer: Two Boys Navigate Changing Times in Minhal Baig’s Independent Spirit Award Nominee

Writer-director Minhal Baig returns with a new coming-of-age tale set in her native Chicago. We Grown Now centers on the city’s Cabrini-Green housing district in 1992. It follows two young boys who are best friends and neighbors, played by first-time actors Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez, whose bond is challenged after an event changes their community. Jurnee Smollett, Lil Rel Howry, and S. Epatha Merkerson also star. It had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival where it won the TIFF Changemaker Award. On top of that, it’s also been nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature, Best Cinematography for DP Pat Scola, and Best Editing for Stephanie Filo. Sony Pictures Classics has just released the trailer ahead of its early spring release.

Here’s the official synopsis:

In 1992 Chicago, as Michael Jordan solidifies himself as a champion, a story of two young legends in their own right begins. As wide-eyed and imaginative best friends Malik and Eric traverse the city, looking to escape the mundaneness of school and the hardships of growing up in public housing, their unbreakable bond is challenged when tragedy shakes their community just as they are learning to fly.

We Grown Now opens April 19 in NYC, L.A., and Chicago, before expanding nationwide on May 10. See the trailer and poster below.

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