URGENT - For Toronto People - See Home Again Film This Weekend

[Tropicana]

Home Again Film Explores the Challenges of 3 Deportees to Jamaica who have Spent Most of Their Life in Canada

Home Again Film, the brand new movie by husband and wife team Sudz Sutherland, Producer, Director, & Screenwriter (Da Kink in My Hair, Degrassi: The Next Generation) and Jennifer Holness, Producer & Screenwriter ( Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, She's the Mayor) is playing for this weekend only and as many people as possible need to see it. Why? So that in future we can have support and funding for more Black flims.



http://www.homeagainfilm.com/#/home

It is playing in downtown Toronto, Scarborough, Brampton, and Vancouver for this weekend only.

Here is a full list of screenings:

http://www.homeagainfilm.com/#/screenings/

Sudz Sutherland's parents are from Jamaica and Jennifer Holness was born in Jamaica and came to Canada at a young age.

The movie stars Jamaican-born Lyriq Bent (Detective Daniel Rigg in Saw II, III, IV).

Cast

Lyriq Bent as Dunston Williams
Stephan James as Everton St.Clair
Fefe Dobson as Cherry C.
Richard Chevolleau as Jammix
Paul Campbell as Uncle Archie Morris
Kadeem Wilson as Jim 'The Don' Gilbert
Brian Brown as Ras Leon
Tatyana Ali as Marva Johnson


You can see the full cast list here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2121286/

[Tropicana]

HOW WOULD YOU feel if you had lived almost all your life in Canada, but were deported to a foreign country where you faced employment barriers, homelessness, starvation, rape, and even death?

It’s a prospect that hit too close to home for filmmaker Sudz Sutherland and his wife, producer-screenwriter Jennifer Holness. On the line from Toronto, Sutherland explains that Holness discovered that a childhood friend, whose early life paralleled her own—of coming to Canada as a young child, reuniting with a mother, and growing up here—had been killed after being deported to Jamaica. He had gotten involved in petty crime, which escalated until he was deported. He had just begun to turn his life around after 10 years in Jamaica when he was murdered.
“That was the impetus for the story,” Sutherland says of his dramatic feature Home Again, which opens on Friday (March 22).
Sutherland, who directed the TV miniseries Guns and the feature film Love, Sex, and Eating the Bones, says they first approached the National Film Board of Canada to make a documentary, but their proposal was declined. The NFB later supported them to do research in Jamaica for a film. The couple found 40 deportees to interview in Kingston and Ocho Rios (where Sutherland’s parents are from; Sutherland was born in Canada), through a drug-rehabilitation program.
Listening to their stories was “incredibly hard”, Sutherland says.
“One guy, it was like I was staring in a mirror.…He grew up where I grew up, in Scarborough. And all his references were Canadian, like Eaton Centre and the Ex [Canadian National Exhibition]…he was a Sunshine Boy [a Toronto tabloid beefcake shot]—all these kinds of things.…What we looked at was people who had emigrated as children…to their adoptive countries, but for one reason or another their parents never got them citizenship, so when they did run afoul of the law, instead of a slap on the wrist, now it’s exile…and homelessness.”
Home Again follows three characters who are deportees in Jamaica: Marva (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s Tatyana Ali), caught as an unwitting drug mule for an ex-boyfriend, is wrenched from her two Canadian-born children and faces an uncertain life with resentful relatives. The 21-year-old Everton (Stephan James), deported from Britain for possession of a few joints, finds his private-school education hasn’t prepared him for street life. Meanwhile, New York City drug dealer Dunston (Rookie Blue’s Lyriq Bent) gets quickly drawn into Kingston’s vicious underworld.
Sutherland wanted to expose what lies behind the façade of a tourist’s experience of Jamaica at an all-inclusive resort. “All the things we all take for granted—talking to a deportee puts all that stuff into perspective,” he says.
The film’s release follows recent debates over the controversial Bill C-43. The Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act would reduce the number of appeals that refugees, permanent residents, and visitors can make for crimes with punishments of six months or more in jail. Critics, including MP Elizabeth May, have raised concerns about the powers that it would give the immigration minister. (A petition against the bill is available at the Home Againwebsite: www.homeagainfilm.com/.)
Ultimately, Sutherland wants to give voice to Jamaica’s deportee population, which now numbers around 34,000, seven times the country’s prison population.
“They wanted to talk about this. They want to get this issue out there. They wanted to be heard,” he says. “We’re trying to get this story right.”

[Tropicana]

There are a number of Jamaican actors in the film including Jamaican-born, Toronto based Richard Chevolleau:



Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Chevolleau was raised in Toronto, where he experimented with acting early in his schooling. Following high school, he studied the Meisner Technique under Paul Bardier and later trained at the Maggie Bassett Studio. He has also developed a wide variety of physical skills as diverse as boxing and juggling.You may recognize him from The Border, Flashpoint, 11th Hour, Street Time Soul Food, and, of course:

[Tropicana]

Here is some of Richard's other work. He is quite intense...always has been So intense :

Updated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW46feXhIIM

Anyway, I shared this thread with Richard. Hopefully, if he is not too busy he will pop by, say hi and answer some questions. Knowing him, he is probably off shooting his next project.

If he comes by mek sure onoo nice to him. Onoo can gwan bad sometime you know.

[My Looh]

I don't want to sound heartless, but if the parents of these children did not apply to get citizenship status for them "for one reason or another" then there is no one to blame but themselves. When these kids grow up they still can't be bothered to apply for citizenship, why not?

Yes, send them back! They obviously don't want to become Canadians when given the opportunity. You know how many people in other parts of the world would love to have a chance to get Canadian citizenship?

[Tropicana]

Some of them are sent back when they are in their teens. Not sure how old they have to be to apply for citizenship on their own. Also, the Canadian and US Governments can always de-naturalize someone and ship them back if they really want to.

[Yuriatin]

You dont sound cruel. Not to me.

I don't want to sound heartless, but if the parents of these children did not apply to get citizenship status for them "for one reason or another" then there is no one to blame but themselves. When these kids grow up they still can't be bothered to apply for citizenship, why not?

Yes, send them back! They obviously don't want to become Canadians when given the opportunity. You know how many people in other parts of the world would love to have a chance to get Canadian citizenship?

[j-kid]

Looks interesting!

If it noh com tuh di states, den mi wi support it wen it com out pan DVD. Home wi noh bootleg di heck outa it like wi luv fi duh.

[Tropicana]

I didn't realize CCH Pounder was from Guyana. I thought she was African American. I know someone who worked on a shoot with her once and she said "She ain't that attractive but man can she every act her [donkey] off!"

Birth Name

Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder

Height

5' 7" (1.70 m)

Mini Biography

CCH Pounder (the CCH standing for Carol Christine Hilaria, her birth name). As can be said of other similarly styled actresses such as Alfre Woodard and Cicely Tyson, most of Pounder's characters are enriched with these same positive attributes and it is a testament to this actress' abilities that she continues on such a high plane in a nearly three-decade career.

Born on Christmas Day 1952 in Guyana, she was raised on a sugar cane plantation. Her parents moved to the States while she was still a young girl, but she and her sister were sent to a convent boarding school in Britain where they were introduced to art and the classics. Following high school graduation, she arrived in New York and studied at Ithaca College, where her acting talents were discovered. Regional and classical repertory theater followed, earning roles in such productions as "The Mighty Gents" withMorgan Freeman at the New York Shakespeare Festival and "Open Admissions," her Broadway debut. Her preference for a warmer climate led to her move to Hollywood in the late 1970s.

[Tropicana]

Lyriq Bent




Here is more about Lyriq Bent http://lyriqbent.com one of the stars. His film credits include starring opposite Mark Wahlberg and Andrè 3000 in the John Singleton film “Four Brothers” and “Take the Lead” with Antonio Banderas and Alfre Woodard. Bent also co-starred in the smash horror films Saw II and Saw III and as a central character in Saw IV, which opened at #1 in the box office, grossing over $100 million worldwide.

Bent is also as passionate about sports as he is about acting. He is an avid golfer and enjoys playing basketball, baseball, and soccer, and is no stranger to his kitchen.

Born in Jamaica, Brent came to Toronto when he was 6 but has been based in Los Angeles for the last five years. He is married, with two boys.
He was not named Lyriq because of his voice. “I can't hold a note,” he claims. “I tried a singing lesson but my vocal coach kept giving me the stink eye.”
He's been acting for 10 years but had no intention of becoming an actor.
“When I was 19, I went door to door selling long-distance phone service to put myself through school,” he recalls. “I was studying to become a computer graphic technician. I always got strangers saying ‘You should model; you should act.' A co-worker finally said, ‘Go see this acting coach.' “
So he did.
He's appeared in Angela's Ashes, Kevin Hill, Platinum, Blue Murder, Sophie and the miniseries Guns. His film work includes Four Brothers, Take the Lead, The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico and he survived Saw ll through Saw lV playing a SWAT leader.
“When I first met my agent, I remember sitting in her office and saying, ‘What I don't want is to play stereotypical roles: Rapist, bouncer, drug dealer,' ” he says. “I have played bad-guy roles but they were significant to the story.”
In Rookie Blue, he is the boss.
“He runs the division,” Bent explains. He is not the typical character in a cop drama — he's not old and jaded, raggedy, torn and tired of the job. He is young, fresh and vibrant.”

http://www.thestar.com/life/2010/12/04/strellson_is_classy_onestop_shopping.html#article

[Tropicana]

Tatyana Ali




On January 24th 1979, Tatyana Marisol Ali was born to Sonia, who was a nurse from Panama and Sheriff Ali, a retired police officer from Trinidad. At the age of four, she started singing and got a taste of fame when she begged her mother to take her to an audition for Sesame Street.


She went on to perform in many productions in her native city, New York, including the Broadway show, "Fences", with James Earl Jones and, later, Billy Dee Williams, and the off-Broadway show, "Orfeo del Campo". When she was seven, she appeared on "Star Search" (1983) and won twice, receiving a four-star rating when she appeared for a second time. At the age of eleven, Tatyana moved from New York to Los Angeles for her breakthrough role and to established her career. Most of us know her as Will Smith's cousin, "Ashley Banks", from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (1990).


While filming "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (1990), she also had interesting side projects, including guest roles in television shows such as "The Cosby Show" (1984), "MMC" (1989) (aka "The Mickey Mouse Club"), Kyno's "Storytime" (1994), "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" (1991) and the television movie, Mr. Foster's Field Trip (1994), Young and The Restless.


Tatyana also contributed to major movies such as Crocodile Dundee II (1988) and Eddie Murphy Raw (1987). Since then, she has had large roles in two movies, Fall Into Darkness (1996) (TV) and Fakin' Da Funk (1997), a feature film from 1997. She has also guest-starred in several sitcoms, including "In the House" (1995), and had a cameo role in the film, Kiss the Girls (1997). She also went to Harvard and graduated with a degree in Anthropology in June 2002. She is now working on her new album, as well as starring in more movies.

[Tropicana]

Returning to a "home" they hardly know after being deported from their adopted countries for minor criminal offenses, three people from very different backgrounds try to make a new life for themselves, in Jamaica in this gutsy drama from writer-director Sudz Sutherland.


Between 1999 and 2001, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States passed legislation which mandated that any foreign-born person convicted of a criminal offense could be deported to their country of origin. This led to the expulsion and deportation of many who had left those countries virtually in infancy, and had no knowledge of the nations they were being sent back to. The blowback from this policy is the subject of Sudz Sutherland’s gutsy drama Home Again.Sutherland follows three characters, now back "home" in Jamaica and struggling to find their place in what is effectively a foreign country. Everton (Stephan James) is a spoiled British teenager deported over possession of a few joints, an offence which wouldn’t even rate a mention in some countries’ criminal codes. Young mother Marva (Tatyana Ali), deported because she foolishly transported a suitcase full of contraband for her no-account, now long-gone boyfriend, struggles to re-unite with her children and deal with her new home life, which includes a furious aunt who feels she’s being imposed upon and an uncle who wants Margo there for less than altruistic reasons. Finally, there’s Dunston (Lyriq Bent), who appears to have a shadier past than the other two and who quickly obtains employment in the Kingston underworld as a bodyguard for a vicious drug lord known as The Don, who also serves as a kind of godfather to the community, resolving disputes between neighbours and rendering sage judgments with a Solomon-like air.
As these characters attempt to navigate their way in a world they don’t understand, Sutherland and his co-writer Jennifer Holness subtly manoeuvre them towards a path to (some sort of) redemption exploring the obliviousness of the "First World" to conditions in the "Third" (most pointedly in a scene where Everton’s mother, played by the great CCH Pounder, meets a drunken tourist who, from the vantage of the hotel pool, deems Jamaica a paradise). Home Againbegins, quite rightly, as a critique of a catastrophic and fundamentally racist policy, but by the end it’s as much about the courage of its principals as they attempt to carve out new lives for themselves.

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2012/homeagain

[Tropicana]

Here are the screenings for Sunday.

homeagainscreenings.jpg

[Tropicana]

Home Again is not an easy trip: Review

Home Again, by writer/director Sudz Sutherland, portrays the lives of three deportees to Jamaica, a place they haven’t seen since childhood




Starring Lyriq Bent, Tatyana Ali and Stephan James. Co-written and directed by Sudz Sutherland. 103 minutes. Opens March 22 at Cineplex 401-Morningside and Yonge-Dundas. 14A

The title is meant to be ironic because there’s no way the three central characters of Home Again, who’ve been forcibly returned to Jamaica—a place they left as small children—feel any kinship or have any connection to the land of their birth.

Bold assumption.

Canadian writer/director Sutherland’s searing drama opens with a shocking preamble: from 1996 to 2001, three countries, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., passed laws making it easier to deport, for even minor crimes, longtime residents who hadn’t obtained citizenship. The result: more than 34,000 people have since been deported to the Caribbean nation, more than seven times the island’s prison population.


Marva (Tatyana Ali) has left her two children behind in Canada after, to her enduring shame and regret, she’s duped by a smooth-talking boyfriend who turns out to be a drug smuggler.


While Dunston (Lyriq Bent) has done four years of hard time in a U.S. prison, Everton (Stephan James), a U.K. high school student, has been deported after being caught with a few joints.


All three find themselves strangers in a strange and unwelcoming land.


And while Marva and Everton delude themselves that their stay is temporary, Dunston sets out to buy a fake passport, though the price is far beyond his means.


While Dunston uses his brawn and hard-core rep to find employment as a guard/enforcer at a drug lab, the callow Everton plies a local girl with his charms to find temporary refuge. Marva milks goats, struggles in vain to fend off the advances of an uncle and finds prospects for employment bleak.


“No decent folk is going to hire any deportee,” she’s told flatly.


All three actors acquit themselves well, particularly Bent as Dunston, a soulful man trying to leave his violent past behind. Ali creates a sympathetic portrait of Marva, a woman close to breaking under the crushing weight of adversity. James’ portrayal of Everton is the opposite. He’s shallow and manipulative, particularly of his grief- and guilt-stricken mother, (played by the always wonderful CCH Pounder). His rapid descent is harrowingly believable.


The reggae-infused soundtrack is similarly used for ironic effect, its breezy, carefree tone a stark contrast to the hard-scrabble life faced by the three outcasts and the Jamaican people themselves.


Sutherland is certain to earn enmity in some quarters for his portrayal of daily life in Jamaica, an island paradise for the garishly dressed tourists but a virtual prison for deportees. The majority of the people there are variously portrayed as sex-crazed, drug-addicted, prone to extreme violence or sanctimonious hypocrites.


Sutherland’s film also raises a genuine issue: how could the parents of these deportees be so remiss in safeguarding their children’s future? No one is likely to thank Sutherland for that either.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2013/03/22/home_again_is_not_an_easy_trip_review.html

[Tropicana]

Murphy’s Law: an adage that states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Sometimes it feels that no matter what we do, life throws us lemon after lemon, knocking over the glasses of lemonade we’ve resigned ourselves to and laughing at us in the process. Other times, the choices we make are the things that steer us headfirst into misfortune. Either way, Murphy’s Law finds its way into our lives at one point or another – and this was one of the unforgettable lessons of Sudz Sutherland’s gripping new film, Home Again.I was lucky enough to obtain a press pass to the film courtesy of Hungry Eyes Film & Television and G 98.7FM. Home Again opens at select theatres across the GTA, Vancouver, and Montreal this Friday, but I was excited to screen the movie in advance.
Home Alone stars Tatyana Ali, Lyriq Bent, Stephan James, Fefe Dobson, and CCH Pounder as various characters who have their lives changed in Jamaica. Marva (Ali), Dunston (Bent), and Everton (James) are 3 deportees from Toronto, NYC, and London England who all find themselves forced back to a country they all left before the age of 5.
Poor decisions (well-intentioned or otherwise) landed the three back in Jamaica, but Murphy’s Law was what welcomed them with open arms.Home Again unfolds itself in their stories which often intersect in interesting ways, and shows us the lengths that people will go to in order to survive – no matter how many times life tries to knock them down.
The husband-wife team of Sutherland and Jennifer Holness wrote a story that was complex without being too messy, and eye-opening without being too invasive. Each character offered such a multi-dimensional view of family, loyalty, relationships, and the deportation process in general that any one could have had an entire film crafted solely around them. Deportation within the diaspora has become such a common theme that it’s hard to step back and really look at the layout of the process until you’re forced to – and that’s what this movie did for me. I recall some of my father’s friends being deported when I was young, but I absorbed it as something that just happened. You shrug your shoulder, buy a few international phone cards, and move on with life. Home Again exposed the audience to the failures of the system on all sides – the “foreign” country’s unfair deportation practices (usually for low-level crimes), family negligence of proper filing of paperwork, and Jamaica’s lack of support for those who return, unfamiliar and lost in a place that they never knew.

At many times throughout the film, I wondered if any of our protagonists would have a happy ending. Marva left children behind in Toronto, and her Jamaican family is less than supportive. Dunston hopped from one life of crime in New York to another in Kingston. Everton was the private school-educated young man with a promising future whose naivete affected him the most out of any other character in the film. Needless to say, Home Again overflows with searing reality. In real life, not everyone can have a happy ending, and art definitely imitated life in this case. Gang life, sexual abuse, and drug abuse play as vital roles as any of the characters, butHome Again also has its lighter moments. Themes of love and redemption are strong, and there are crucial comedic moments that add a necessary break from the struggles the main characters face.I loved the small details in the film as well. Caribbean film usually includes subtitles to assist viewers who can’t catch the fast-moving patois. I often find the subtitles to be jarring – slapped on-screen and sometimes removed too quickly to follow what the character is saying. Sutherland incorporated subtitles that seemed to float across the screen – not taking your attention away, but not leaving you lost in the process. I also loved the nuance used with regards to sex and sexuality in the film. I’m no prude, but I’ve grown weary of the gratuitous sex scenes that I’ve seen in other Caribbean film. I may just be sensitive to reinforcing the hypersexualized stereotypes of Caribbean men and women, but it was refreshing to see sexuality played out in a more subdued (yet equally effective) way. The cinematography was utterly gorgeous – though the film was shot in Trinidad, the arranged settings of Trenchtown, Spanish Town, and other areas of Jamaica were beautiful. My biggest concern was how the actors would pull off authentic Jamaican accents, and I was pleasantly surprised for the most part! My ear could pick out a few actors who were clearly Trinidadian playing Jamaicans, and some other cast members fell flat with a bit of their pronunciation, but overall it was great. In fact, the mixture of Torontonian, New Yorker, Jamaican, and British accents were like musical melodies, and was an audible tie to the diasporic reach of Jamaica, and the Caribbean at large.
Home Again had the theatre laughing, gasping, cursing and the screen, and dead silent. The surprises and “did that REALLY just happen?” moments kept us on the edge of our seats and engrossed in the story playing out in front of us. The heartbreaking moments, the difficult-to-watch moments, the moments that gave us respite from the harsh realities of what we were ingesting – it was all laid out in perfect puzzle piece form, with everything eventually coming together to give us one cohesive view. Though Murphy’s Law was prominent for me, Home Again also left me with a strong sense of perseverance and the fact that the next choice you make might just have the power to turn things around. If you’re looking for an amazing film that educates while it emotes and entertains, Home Again is what you need in your life.
For my Toronto/Vancouver/Montreal peeps, Home Again hits select theatres starting this Friday! PLEASE go out to support on opening weekend, and let the power of Canadian-Caribbean cinema be known! Check the Home Again Facebook page for more details. For my American friends, check the Home Again site to see when the film might be playing in your area. Caribbean cinema is making serious moves – Storm Saulter is seeing big success with the AFFRM-backed release of his film Better Mus Come (which I reviewed last year), so the sky is the limit for Home Again! Definitely let me know what you thought of the film after you see it!

http://www.83toinfinity.com/2013/03/21/artsy-fartsy-home-again-screening-review