CARRY ME HOME: The suspense builds to an edge-of-your-seat climax in Passage, a captivating short made by Kareem Mortimer. It’s about a bunch of Haitian refugees – thirsty, hungry, hot – cramped below deck on a vessel headed for a better life in the US. But not everyone will make it to dry land. The boat’s ruthless crew members are not above throwing overboard anyone who has become sick – fearful that they will infect everybody else. So you feel for young mother Sandrine (Dana Ferguson), who quietly steals a bottle of water from the crew’s ice-box for her son Etienne (Lorenz Wright), who has started coughing up blood. Uh-oh. What plays out is a devastating, gut-wrenching sequence steeped in panic, desperation and cruel fate. [B+]
SKY’S THE LIMIT: Boys will be boys. Best friends and primary-age kids Kemar (Roheim Phillips) and Roshane (Craig Robinson) are on the house’s zinc roof with a makeshift telescope checking out the stars. Other times they lie on their backs just gazing up, dreaming of becoming astronauts exploring the celestial unknown. To wit, sometimes the boys dress up in full play-time astronaut costume. In Kia Moses’ fascinating effort Flight, such sequences set up a stunning contrast to the harsh socio-economic realities of surviving in the ghetto, where Kemar’s father, Clive (Jermaine Nelson) makes a living as a bus driver and a gang of hoodlums want to recruit and train Roshane. A no-nonsense father figure like Clive abhors the idea of his son having his head in the clouds instead of his schoolwork, but Moses succeeds in showing how a parent supporting a child’s dream can deepen that bond in the face of great odds. A well-made little film that deserves five ‘stars’. [A-]
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