BLAM!

2009
19 minutes

This short film was my senior project at the University of New Orleans in Spring of 2009. It was only ever screened once at the annual student film festival. I wrote it the previous September during two hurricane evacuations for Hurricanes Gustave and Ike that year. At the same time I was writing a script based on John Frum of Vanuatu called 'Cargo.' Both writings have a kinship and a unique place in a constellation of ideas. There were many seeds here which I've returned to over the years and many stylistic elements which owe to the 70s films I loved then.
The main character, Baraka Lamet, is based on a real person I worked with during summers cleaning the on-campus apartments who regaled me with stories of his life and views on social issues. That life and spirit inspired some elements which I then elaborated a fiction from; an alternate life where he had been a television actor in the seventies.
This production almost didn't happen--the day before shooting it seemed as if everything had fallen apart. All would've been lost if not for the belief of a few friends who thought that not only could we do it with the resources we had but that we absolutely had to do it. Antonio McGill stepped up at the 25th hour and launched himself into the role of Blam--I'm endlessly grateful to him and everyone who made this film happen, because the experience of making it over those 4 days was essential.