“Ghost Town to Havana.” (2015, Playtwo Pictures). Directed by, Eugene Corr.
Tentative screening w panel discussion/ Q & A to follow
Thursday November 5, 5-7:15pm

Organizer/ Presider: Michael A. Messner, University of Southern California
Panelists: James McKeever, Pierce College; Eugene Corr, Director; Michael A. Messner, USC

Film Synopsis:
A life rampant, street level story of mentorship and ordinary, everyday heroism in tough circumstances.  An inner city coach’s son, estranged in his youth from his father, spends five years on ball fields in inner city Oakland and Havana, following the lives of two extraordinary youth baseball coaches:  Nicolas Reyes, a 61 year old Afro-Cuban who coaches in a Havana neighborhood that is rich in community but struggling desperately economically, and Roscoe Bryant, a 46 year old African-American man who coaches in a troubled Oakland neighborhood wracked by three decades of gang violence.

The filmmaker introduces the coaches on videotape and Coach Roscoe vows he will take his players to Cuba to play Nicolas’ team one day.

Two years of US/Cuba sanctions and red tape later, Coach Roscoe and 9 players fly to Havana to play Coach Nicolas¹ team.  For the next week, the boys and coaches eat, dance, swim, argue, tease, and play baseball together.  The wary, street-smart, Ghost Town boys gradually warm to the fun-loving friendship of their Afro-Cuban hosts.  Baseball!  Girls!  Fun!  Real friendships form.  Then Roscoe receives a fateful phone call from home.  Right fielder Chris Fletcher¹s stepfather has been murdered on an Oakland street.  Ghost Town to Havana is contemporary in content but as old as the Greeks thematically:  the human struggle to wrest life from death

For more information go to: www.ghosttowntohavana.com

If the trailer doesn’t load for you, you can link to it by clicking on the following URL’s.

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/125864735
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfFfZAdgSiI