Wednesday, November 15, 2023
He started as one of the only African American football players on the Fort Hunt Federals football team back in the 1970s and now some 50 years later, Matt Weathers is revisiting the whole experience. “I wrote a book about my experiences there,” he said, “I’m going to take that to the screen too.”
This movie in the making comes on the back of a successful film called “The Milkman Vengeance” that he made recently and was honored at the Prince Georges Film Festival. That story was full of good guys, bad guys and politicians and ended on a good note. “The milkman is a hero for the community,” Weathers said.
The action film starred some local talent and others from New York City, and in the end the officials at the Prince Georges County Film Festival awarded it an official selection. It ran Sept. 28-Oct. 1.
The film festival "was a nice experience," he said, "an honor."
The festival listed it as a "narrative feature," and the description gives a hint of the crooked officials. "After witnessing the murder of his beloved Grandfather, a Special Operations veteran with a tick enacts his own retributive justice against the bad element of the city and those in power who turn a blind eye," it said.
When he’s not behind the camera, Matt Weathers is the owner of Weathers Production LLC, a full service production company that specializes in film production management, script writing, marketing, web design and turning a book into a film.
He started out writing at Fort Hunt, and has worn many hats as businessman, educator, activist, union representative, lobbyist, actor, writer and now Film Executive Producer. His passion for the entertainment field blossomed as a mass communication major at University of Massachusetts Amherst working with productions in the areas of radio, TV, script writing, journalism, and commercial ads, according to his website.
Although Weather started out writing in his career, the movement into film was highlighted by a conversation he had with Bill Duke, a high-level film producer with links to Hollywood. Duke is known as a character actor, starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando and Predator, and appearing in other films such as American Gigolo, Bird on a Wire and X-Men. "He was very positive and supportive," said Weathers. Although Duke has a busy schedule, "he carved out two hours to talk to me," he added.