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Award winning filmmaker, Darryl Wharton-Rigby’s feature film STAY was selected for the 21ST URBANWORLD FILM FESTIVAL. The film screens on Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 2017, 9:45PM at the AMC Empire Theater 10, 42nd Street Theatre in New York City.

STAY follows two young lovers who fall passionately in love over a weekend, Ryuu, a Japanese man who is a recovering addict and Hope, an American woman trying to “find herself” in the Tokyo nightclub scene. The film features up and coming Japanese star, Shogen, and introduces British model turned actress, Ana Tanaka.

Japan is a country where drugs and addiction are taboo topics. In fact, once discovered a current or former drug user, he or she is considered persona non-grata. STAY explores the issues/themes of forgiveness, faith and second chances. Ryuu wants his the life he had before the drugs. He is confronted by temptation and must fight the urge to slip back into his old ways.

Stay was written and directed by filmmaker/playwright Darryl Wharton-Rigby, who now resides in Japan. Wharton-Rigby earned his BA at Ithaca College and MFA at Chapman University in Film Production with an emphasis in Directing. From 2010 - 2012, Darryl was professor for Morgan State University’s Screenwriting and Animation (SWAN) Program. Darryl won the Best Director Award at the Urbanworld Film Festival in 1998 for his film Detention.

Darryl follows in the footsteps of filmmaker Aaron Woolfolk as becoming the 2nd African-American to direct a feature film in Japan. Shot on a micro-budget, STAY was shot in fifteen days in in and around Tokyo using the Black Magic Pocket Camera. Stylistically, the film was shot primarily handheld and captures Tokyo up close and personal.