From the cutting and pushing edge Miami wrecking production crew, Borscht Corp. here is SOMOS CHAVALOS, adopted and directed by Julian Yuri Rodriguez.  It is a modern urban Latino youth interpretation of the Gwendolyn Brooks’ brief and majorly significant poem, We Be Cool. What’s raw and real here is that this perspective is unapologetic and from the youth direct, made searing by the disconcerting casually tragic POV of their short term life. This aint no outsider looking in told tale as we often are given these stories. If we want to ‘get kids these days’ we gotta dig under the surface and give weight to their reality. Do that by really listening between the lines and implications. The street family and code of honor, for all its criminality and corruption, offers a place of respect, love and pocket money – a badge of status – for lower class kids. The easiness and eagerness with which they pursue this avenue of survival is a critical discussion to engage.

Julian (24) may be young blood but his provocative in your face style has this between the lines intensity and import. He’s my latest add on my TALENTO filmmaker list of emerging filmmakers to watch. Check him out on Piratas, a short he narrates and co-directs. And coming soon online is C#ckfight, watch the cheeky trailer here.  Borscht has received considerable funding support from the James L. Knight Foundation, one of the more visionary and bold arts foundation out there, based in Miami. Keep up with Borscht’s crazy cool transmedia storytelling stimulation on their Tumblr where they release their own work as they please and for free.

Here’s We Real Cool 1963 poem by Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks:

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.