Watch This: Trailer for Furlough

Furlough presses all the right buttons. Female leads, female director, and the promise of a fun comedy. Check out the trailer.

From director Laurie Collyer, Furlough is about a rookie correctional officer played by Tessa Thompson who takes an inmate (Melissa Leo) on a furlough to visit her dying mother. The fact that public transportation is used for this excursion should be a clue that this isn’t going to be the normal kind of story about prisoners and guards.

Also starring in Furlough are Whoopi Goldberg, Anna Paquin, and La La Anthony. The cinematographer is Berenice Eveno. Woman power all the way.

I saw an article the other day, which Google doesn’t seem to remember as well as I do, that said that Tessa Thompson has had women directors on over 50% of her films. That’s quite an accomplishment. She shows her support for women directors in visible ways at public events, too.

This just made my Monday. Much love to you, @TessaThompson_x. And love to all who understand that a lack of women directors is to film/TV what one hand is to clapping. 👀 pic.twitter.com/OIvcMuOiAj

— Ava DuVernay (@ava) January 22, 2018

Now Tessa can add the name Laurie Collyer to a new shirt.

The exact release date for the film hasn’t been announced, but it will be some time in 2018.