One of the highly anticipated films of the year, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” will air on Netflix on December 18, 2020. Directed by George C. Wolfe, with a screenplay by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the film is based on the August Wilson play.
The Netflix synopsis is as follows:
Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey (Viola Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio’s
claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Chadwick Boseman) — who has an eye for Ma’s girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry — spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives.