Grammy award winning recording artist Angie Stone (Rickey Smiley Show) is completely unrecognizable in the UP Original Movie “My Other Mother” premiering this Sunday. Portraying a grieving widow, a woman well in her sixties, Stone delivers a strong, angry, performance that most will not expect from the singer turned reality star.
Starring Essence Atkins (Haunted House 2), Lynn Whitfield (The Josephine Baker Story), Jasmine Guy (“The Vampire Diaries”), GregAlan Williams(“Necessary Roughness”), Kendrick Ross (“Iron Man 3”), “My Other Mother” marks the fifth film to be produced and air on UP as a direct result of the network’s highly successful “UP Faith & Family Screenplay Competition,” now in its fourth year. The script is by Keronda “KiKi” McKnight, the Winner in last year’s UP Faith & Family Screenplay Competition at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF). Stan Foster (Peacher’s Kid, “Tour of Duty”) directed.
In “My Other Mother”, Candace “Candy” Meyers (Essence Atkins) is a successful anchor on a top-rated national magazine show. Fiercely independent and committed to her job, Candy doesn’t make many friends with her demanding, gruff nature. In fact, her only true friend might be her long-time manager Lewis (Kendrick Cross). Candy discovers that an anonymous fan she’s had for years has passed way – and he was her biological father Freddy Nelson!
Content with the love and support of her adoptive family, Candy has never been curious about her biological parents. That all changes when she travels back for her father’s funeral, meets the Nelson family – including biological uncle Abner (GregAlan Williams), Freddy’s wife Delores (Angie Stone) and her two step-brothers – and discovers that her reclusive, angry and stubborn birth mother, Mary Jo (Lynn Whitfield) is going to be a challenge. The journey these two surprisingly similar women take getting to know each other will break down walls and open them up to a life they never knew was possible.
Produced by Swirl Films, the film is directed by Stan Foster (Peacher’s Kid, “Tour of Duty”). My Other Mother marks the fifth film to be produced and air on UP as a direct result of the network’s highly successful “UP Faith & Family Screenplay Competition,” now in its fourth year. The script is by Keronda “KiKi” McKnight, the Winner in last year’s UP Faith & Family Screenplay Competition at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF).