Why A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King Has ‘Beef’ With A24 Over Film Based on Her Tweets
Written by SOURCE on January 31, 2022
A’Ziah “Zola” King, who penned the 2015 Twitter thread that made its way to the big screen as A24’s Zola, is calling out the production company.
The creative took to Twitter on Sunday and quote-tweeted a Film Independent post about the Independent Spirit Awards, to share that she was neither invited to the ceremony nor included in the writing award category.
“I think it’s hilarious ZOLA is up for 7 awards & no one thought to invite me nor include me IN the writers award category,” King tweeted. “As if there would’ve been a film or a script to write if I didn’t um…write it? The most of any film this year & any film @A24 has EVER made btw. A ki.”
Continuing in a thread, King shared that A24 was “full of shit,” and that her concern is with the company and “not the creators, not the award shows.”
“a24 is the OP rn,” she wrote. “Nobody else.”
“I think its HILARIOUS everyone else is on my Television promoting & speaking on my experience as if it’s their moment & not a moment I created for us all,” King wrote. “I think its hilarious my intellect, trauma & talent is being overshadowed & hijaked. I AM the moment! Excuse me while I laugh.”
King is credited as an executive producer in the film, for which she says writers Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris are deserving of accolades, adding they “fought for me for YEARS.” The issue, however, is “not receiving a invite or even being thought of.”
At the end of the thread, King said after the Shade Room posted her tweets, she suddenly has “2 tickets coming.”
“I bet I do,” she wrote. “I’ll see y’all there.”
Harris and Bravo both voiced support for King on social media after she shared her thread. Bravo applauded her contributions, while Harris wrote that “it’s actually insane that for so many minority creators we are forced to go to the press or get messy in public before we are extended the decencies of our white counterparts.”
“I know I joke a lot but I don’t want to be messy in public,” Harris wrote. “I want to be a writer who makes amazing things and am treated with the same respect as some of the white ppl who have inspired my work. I also want the same for my black, queer, and femme counterparts and colleagues!”
