What to know about Don­ald Glover’s mys­te­ri­ous film Gua­va Island

While atten­dees at Cal­i­forn­ian music fes­ti­val Coachel­la busy them­selves with select­ing the prop­er crop top and test­ing the puri­ty of their MDMA, a major movie event is play­ing out right under their fine­ly dust­ed noses.

The upcom­ing Gua­va Island first came to the public’s atten­tion last year, when a pho­to of a braid­ed Rihan­na and beard­ed Don­ald Glover sur­faced online along with the news that they were work­ing on some­thing in Cuba. It’s been large­ly shroud­ed in mys­tery for the inter­im months, but the pub­lic will final­ly get an eye­ful this weekend.

Any­one with a tick­et to Coachel­la could have been among the first to glimpse the fin­ished film, hav­ing world pre­miered on the fes­ti­val grounds last night as a sort of lead-in to this evening’s head­lin­ing per­for­mance from Glover under his rap moniker of Child­ish Gam­bi­no. The good news for every­one else is that Ama­zon will host a free stream of Gua­va Island begin­ning tonight at mid­night Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time, then lim­it access to Prime Video sub­scribers begin­ning at six o’clock that night.

All this leaves the ques­tion of what the film actu­al­ly is, how­ev­er. The offi­cial mate­ri­als label it a ​“trop­i­cal thriller,” about a con­vivial, small-time musi­cian named Deni (Glover) and his lover Kofi (Rihan­na). He wants to put on a music fes­ti­val to bring the denizens of his island home togeth­er, but a sleazy busi­ness­man-type has oth­er plans.

A New York Times report from the scene at Coachel­la offers fur­ther detail: the film runs a svelte 54 min­utes, fea­tures an appear­ance from Black Pan­ther stand­out Leti­tia Wright, and con­tains per­for­mances of reworked Child­ish Gam­bi­no songs ​“This Is Amer­i­ca,” ​“Sat­ur­day,” and ​“Sum­mer­time Magic.”

An in-depth Van­i­ty Fair report quotes Glover as com­par­ing the film to Brazil­ian crime epic City of God and Prince’s semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Pur­ple Rain, though the premise and scant images from the pro­duc­tion remind this writer more of bossa nova clas­sic Black Orpheus.

One aspect of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is the place­ment of Hiro Murai in the director’s chair. One of the most excit­ing names in music video and TV work, this will be the longest work we’ve seen yet from the young tal­ent. (Glover’s broth­er and reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tor Stephen wrote the script.)

There’s no full trail­er to speak of, just a lit­tle slideshow of images from Ama­zon, but it looks like a vision of balmy, idyl­lic par­adise. Is mid-April too ear­ly to declare that sum­mer has offi­cial­ly begun?

Gua­va Island will appear on Amazon’s stream­ing ser­vice on 13 April.