Hawai'i filmmaker documents inner-city life

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

GOES: Documentary debuts here on Saturday. 'Black Picket Fence' A documentary by Sergio Goes 8 p.m. Saturday Leeward Community College Theatre, 455-0385. $10 adults, $5 students (not recommended for children, because of frank language) Also: A Q&A session with the filmmaker follows the screening

One is his infant son, Gabriel, born here "in the 22nd hour on Feb. 22, 2002, which must have been an omen of sorts," Goes said.

The other birth involves "Black Picket Fence," his first documentary, which receives its formal premiere April 28 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. "Black Picket Fence" screens here as a preview for friends and all interested parties at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Leeward Community College Theatre.

"My wife (Andrea Torres, who played the moon goddess Hina in the 'Ulalena show on Maui) and I wanted our child to be born in Honolulu," said Goes, 37. That's why they're here.

Goes' odyssey from still photographer to filmmaker is a story of experimentation, application and determination.

The film, a graphic, honest portrait of the bleak and challenging lifestyle of survival in Brooklyn's public housing projects, was an accidental opportunity.

"I was in New York, doing some experimentation with Super 8 and video, when a friend of mine, a filmmaker, got in trouble with the law. He had to do public service in this particular community in Brooklyn, which was the New York capital of assault, murder and all the bad stuff," Goes said. "I was there to help him. It was like being in a different country."

Goes sniffed a story worth exploring; he was associated with a community center, and the film initially was to be a modest glimpse of hip-hop talent in the 'hood.

With so much else happening, he upgraded his project to full-fledged documentary. Goes said he hopes to ultimately shop it to cable television and the film festival crowd.

It required a determined effort to convince the East New York residents that Goes' movie was going to be exploratory and candid, giving outsiders a taste of life under duress, and not an attempt to smear or condemn.

Goes amassed 150 hours of film, which was edited to 90 minutes. The production started in summer 1999 and was completed last October.

His film technique was simple: No script, just a probing camera.

"I just followed people," Goes said. "The guys live the stereotypes — inner-city gangsters, rappers, drug-users, murderers — but there are moments that go beyond the clichés."

The film focuses on two principals: Mel, a drug dealer, now 24, and Tiz, a rapper now 25. "Mel has been in and out of jail since he was 12, but he has stayed out for a year," Goes said. "His life of crime, jail and drugs represents everything Tiz is trying to escape.

"Tiz, who grew up with Mel, is a rapper now planning a tour of Europe. In his society, he is considered a survivor."

Their lives crossed violently when, at about 17, both robbed a store together, Goes said. "Tiz shot Mel by accident and almost killed him."

That they are in their mid-20s, and free, is remarkable, Goes said: "At 25, most of the kids are either in jail or dead."

He was sometimes disturbed and often felt like a therapist, but always continued filming as his subjects vented their frustrations with their often-grim lifestyle.

A Brazil-born photographer, Goes lived 10 years in Hawai'i, building a reputation as a still photographer before moving to New York. His photography has been published and exhibited internationally, most recently at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the London Biennial.

Locally, his works have been exhibited at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and The Contemporary Museum.

While his then-pregnant wife flew to Hawai'i, Goes drove from New York to the West Coast, to film a documentary he will edit here. The course zig-zagged to Texas, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Kansas, New Mexico, Washington and California.

"I wanted to do a movie about life after Sept. 11," he said. "I lived across the way, in Brooklyn, but we were in Cape Cod (Mass.) that day. It's a road movie, about moods and feelings about 9/11."