A Thousand and One, the riveting feature debut from writer-director A.V. Rockwell, is highly attuned to the way that lives progress. In particular, Rockwell doesn’t neglect the fact that as people progress through their small piece of the world, the territory where they reside is progressing, too. The film focuses on Inez (Teyana Taylor, charismatic and powerful in the role), a woman determined to turn her life around after a prison stint, in part to serve the needs of her son, Terry (played initially by Aaron Kingsley Adetola, then in later scenes by Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross). Inez retrieves Terry from foster care in a manner not entirely on the up and up, and the story moves through their life together, empathetically depicting around a decade and a half of strain, growth, and evolution. Against an evocative jazz score that recalls the elegant efforts of Bill Lee or Terence Blanchard of various Spike Lee joints over the years, Rockwell also shows the way the family’s Harlem neighborhood undergoes its own stark changes in the same timeframe, mostly in the form of gentrification that threatens to drive longtime poor and working-class residents away. For people like Inez and Terry, the grueling tests of their resolve never really end, and sometimes the only real achievement is simply making it to another day. With heartfelt attention to truthfulness and an inspired visual eye, Rockwell properly values and honors those weary triumphs.