A darkish cloud might have been forged over Malia Obama’s current Nike advert that includes WNBA star A’ja Wilson.
On the 2024 Sundance Movie Competition, the previous first daughter offered work alongside filmmaker Natalie Jasmine Harris — however that’s not the place the story ends. In a Could 5 publish on X, previously Twitter, Harris famous “similarities” between her brief movie “GRACE” and Obama’s current Nike industrial.
“Been sitting with this for a while. My Sundance short film GRACE (shot brilliantly by Tehillah de Castro) was made with deep love and care,” Harris wrote. “The social cut of the new @Nike commercial directed by Malia Obama (who was also at Sundance my year) feels shockingly similar to my work…”
Harris acknowledged that “art often overlaps,” however admitted the resemblance was a “hard” tablet to swallow, given how rigorously she crafted their story.
On Could 16, Harris revealed an essay with Business Insider, recounting her confusion upon first seeing the advert. She famous the industrial featured “people playing pat-a-cake in a way that echoed an early scene” from her brief movie. She additionally recalled assembly Obama at Sundance, the place the 2 crossed paths at a director’s brunch and different occasions.
“Initially, I was disappointed and hurt — not just for myself but for my entire team,” Harris wrote. “I sent the commercial to friends who had the same reaction I did. One put together a shot-by-shot photo comparison.”
Dia Dipasupil by way of Getty Photos
She revealed that her publish prompted a wave of on-line backlash. Critics argued that she couldn’t declare possession over a childhood recreation. However as Harris clarified, the problem wasn’t merely using pat-a-cake, however within the “cinematic tools used to depict it.”
She added, “My cinematographer, Tehillah De Castro, noted a lot of similarities from a technical perspective, from the camera angles to the shots to the framing composition and the color palette.”
Representatives for Obama and Nike didn’t readily reply to HuffPost’s request for remark.
