Kanye premieres 40 minutefilm, drops more album details

Mon 11th Oct, 2010 in International News

Kanye West has unveiled Runaway, the forty minute film he wrote and directed, to an invited audiences in Paris, London and Tokyo and revealed some tantalizing details about his new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

The film was shot in over four days Prague and narrated by rapper Nicki Minaj in a British accent, co-stars Caymanian model Selita Ebanks in the film as a phoenix that falls to the earth and starts dating Kanye.

In a September interview with New York magazine described the film as “40-minute noir piece based on his new album… [it’s] the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth, and I make her my girlfriend, and people discriminate against her and eventually she has to burn herself alive and go back to her world… I’ve been feeling the idea of the phoenix. It’s been in my heart for a while. It’s maybe parallel to my career. I threw a Molotov cocktail on my career last year, in a way, and I had to come back as a better person.”

Following the premiere of the film in London last week Kanye hosted a two-hour Q&A, dropping several odd comments including the curious statement “Hip Hop is like black semen”.

Kanye says that the film was inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall , Prince’s Purple Rain and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. (Apparently one scene even features an over-sized papier mache model of Michael Jackson’s head.)

He also revealed that Justin Vernon of Bon Iver will feature be on nine tracks the new album and that after he hands in the album on this week he’ll fly to the south of France to finish the Jay-Z collaboration record Watch The Throne. In addition to Vernon the album will also feature cameos from Dwele, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé Knowles, Charlie Wilson, Common, Justin Vernon, Big Sean, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Rick Ross, T.I., Lloyd Banks, Tony Williams, Mos Def, Pusha T, M.I.A., Seal, Swizz Beatz, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, Alicia Keys, Santigold and La Roux.

The trailer for Runaway is currently available at Kanye’s website and the full film will be packaged with copies of the new album

Kanye West will host the Australian premiere of Runaway tonight in Sydney.