DETROIT — Tuesday marked a full circle moment for Detroit filmmaker Qasim Basir, as he held a premiere for his new film "To Live and Die and Live" inside the atrium of the newly rehabbed Michigan Central.

Basir's first job in the film industry was as a production assistant on the 2006 film "Crossover," which starred Anthony Mackie and was filmed at Michigan Central, when the building was in a much different state than it is today. In between takes, Basir and Mackie were chatting, and Basir learned a firsthand lesson about the chain of command in the movie biz.

"At the end of the day, the director was like, 'Look, we've got something called protocol in Hollywood, PAs don't talk to the actors,'" Basir said. "Two days later, he sent his assistant to fire me."

He never forgot the incident. "That's why I wanted to have the premiere here," said Basir, as around 200 friends, family and filmgoers gathered to celebrate his new movie.

"To Live and Die and Live" is a stark drama that tackles subjects such as grief, addiction and redemption. It stars Amin Joseph, who played King Lolo in this year's "One of Them Days," and it opens May 16 in select AMC Theatres locations.

The film's journey to the big screen has been hard fought: "To Live" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, and Basir, who also directed 2010's "Mooz-Lum" and 2018's "A Boy. A Girl. A Dream," has been working to secure a theatrical distribution deal ever since. Last month, a deal was announced through Samuel Goldwyn Films, which also released "A Boy. A Girl. A Dream."

That theatrical release is key to the film's success, its team says, and during a question and answer session moderated by actor Hill Harper following the Tuesday's premiere, Basir and his producers encouraged attendees to support the AMC release by buying tickets for themselves as well as friends in other cities.

"We believe in the grassroots community support," Basir said, "and that's the only way this movie is going to have any legs at all."

The team also advocated for buying out movie theaters to make a splash on opening weekend to help the movie expand to additional markets. "Go out and support these movies," said Basir's wife, Samantha, who is one of the film's producers, "because no one else will."

In the movie, Joseph plays Muhammad Abdullah, a Los Angeles filmmaker who returns home to Detroit following the death of his stepfather. Once in town, he deals with demons past and present, as he meets and courts a stranger, Asia ("Matlock's" Skye P. Marshall), with whom he's able to share his weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

The film, a semi-autobiographical account of Basir's own experience losing his stepfather, was filmed in Detroit in summer 2021, just as the city was beginning to rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other downtown sites, it captures the new Hudson's Detroit tower as it's still under construction.

The movie was filmed under strict COVID protocols and involved a lot of nighttime shoots, with filming often stretching to 4 or 5 in the morning. Basir, who grew up in Detroit and Ann Arbor, said "To Live" was the most challenging film he's ever made, partially due to the birth of his second child during production.

Rodney Sizemore, who acted as the film's cinematographer along with Basir, said the film's look — it depicts Detroit as a glowing nighttime metropolis — represents the way Basir sees the city.

"A lot of time we come into the film and everyone's like, 'I love that you showed Detroit in a different view,' but I think that's just how Qasim views Detroit," he said. "He sees the city in this beautiful light, and that's how it was written in the script, so we really wanted to just highlight that beauty of Detroit, and to really get inside those landscapes."

Joseph, who hails from New York City, called himself a "humble guest" in Detroit and said the city embraced him while filming.

A lot of his character work involved walking around the city, he said, which gave him an appreciation for the city and the role it plays in the movie.

"The city was a central character in this piece," said Joseph. "This city has a tapestry of the old and the new, and Detroit should be seen like this. We're done with the poverty porn. We're done with seeing the dilapidated buildings. The same thing used to happen in the inner city of Harlem, where I'm from. These are beautiful, historic cities and they should be seen as such."

He said he was ecstatic to celebrate the release of the film and that it's coming out when it's supposed to be coming out, according to the universe's timeline.

"Certain meals are ready baked: you pop them in and you pop them out. There are other meals that you've got to take your time for them to be savory, baby. You've got to season that pot. And this is one of those," he said. "This pot has been seasoned, and it's been done with a lot of intention, and I think when a piece of art like this hits an audience, you want people to know it took a while.

"That's the beauty of filmmaking, no one said it's going to be easy, no one said that just because your film is heralded at big film festivals that you can find a market for your film right after that," he said. "Sometimes it means getting with the right distributor, getting with the right team that sees your vision and also believes in your project, and I think that's what we have with this film now."

———

'TO LIVE AND DIE AND LIVE'

No MPA rating (language, drug use, sexual situations)

Running time: 1:45

How to watch: In theaters May 16

———

©2025 The Detroit News. Visit detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.