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A Lesson Before Dying   1999         PG-13, 101 min. Genre: Drama Director: Joseph Sargent   Cast: Don Cheadle, Cicely Tyson, Mekhi Phifer, Irma P. Hall, Brent Jennings, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Frank Hoyt Taylor, Stuart Culpepper, Patty Mack, Elijah Kelley   Set in the South during the 1940s, Don Cheadle plays the role of Grant Wiggins—a teacher, who at the request of a condemned man's mother, Miss Emma (Irma P. Hall) and aunt Tante Lou (Cicely Tyson), goes to visit Jefferson (Mekhi Phifer) daily while he awaits execution. Jefferson was wrongly convicted in a brutal trial that took away his dignity; it falls on Wiggins to help restore this black man's self esteem.