Brody's Scribbles... Critically Acclaimed Independent film Director Peter Bratt Releases 2009 Sundance Film Critic's Choice

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Apr 10 | Aside from being Emmy award winner Benjamin Bratt's brother, Peter Bratt is a growing force as a Director & film maker in his own right. In his critically acclaimed independent first feature film Follow Me Home (1996), he dared to explore race and identity from the multiple and intersecting perspectives of Chicanos, African Americans, and Native Americans. 

When no major studio would distribute this film, Henri Norris, an African American woman who was an attorney then engaged in malpractice litigation, created New Millennia Films so that Bratt's film and message could reach a significant audience.

Bratt was honored for his artistic genius with a 2000 Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship, further demonstrating that he is poised to become one of the twenty first century's major filmmakers.

'La Mission,' a 2009 Sundance Film Festival Critic's Choice winner released to audiences nationwide today, explores the world of growing up in the Mission district of San Francisco.

Che Rivera (Benjamin Bratt) has always had to be tough to survive. Hes a powerful man respected throughout the Mission barrio for his masculinity and his strength, as well as for his hobby building beautiful lowrider cars. At the same time hes also a man feared for his street-tough ways and violent temper.

A reformed inmate and recovering alcoholic, Che has worked hard to redeem his life and do right by his pride and joy: his only son, Jes, whom he has raised on his own after the death of his wife. Ches path to redemption is tested, however, when he discovers Jes is Gay. In a rage, Che violently beats Jes, disowning him. He loses his son and loses himself in the process. Isolated and alone, Che comes to realize that his patriarchal pride is meaningless to him, and to maintain his idea of masculinity, hes sacrificed the one thing that he cherishes most the love of his son. To survive his neighborhood, Che has always lived with his fists. To survive as a complete man, hell have to embrace a side of himself hes never shown.

Los Angeles Times film critic Reed Johnson writes: 

Peter and Benjamin Bratt are on a mission-'La Mission' fulfills their long-time dream of making a film about San Francisco's Mission District, where they grew up.

 "We always wanted to tell a story in our backyard, in our hometown," says Peter, who still lives in San Francisco. "When you go see a Spike Lee film, 'Do the Right Thing,' now we can say, 'Brooklyn,' or 'Queens,' or 'the Bronx,' [and] in South America or France, people know where those neighborhoods are. And we've always said, you know, La Misión is as vibrant creatively, culturally as Harlem."

But the right project didn't come along until Peter, a director and screenwriter, came up with the idea for "La Mission," starring his younger brother Benjamin, known for his award-winning role as Det. Rey Curtis on NBC's "Law & Order" as well as "Piñero," "Traffic" and other films. 

Peter says that one of the film's central themes; 

"The uneasiness (if not outright hostility) of a Chicano male toward his son's homosexuality, is "a complex thing" and "something that as a sociologist you would have a field day writing your dissertation on."

With the release of "La Mission," that new story can be added to the cultural annals of the city of Dirty Harry and Harvey Milk, and now of Che and Jes Rivera, and of the brothers Bratt.