Natasha Griffiths is a screenwriter-director and educator from Manchester, Jamaica. Her latest short film “Home Sweet Home”, will make its world premiere on September 13, at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.
When the ghost of a far removed Jamaican past shows up at her humble Brooklyn apartment, 60-year-old Esmerelda, played by Sharon Gordon, a kindly illegal immigrant who works as a home health aide, is dumbfounded. The proverbial ghost, her estranged ex-husband, has flown from Jamaica, eager to find her, and bears news of their terminally ill son; the child he denied her when she was forced to flee Jamaica some 30 years prior.
“We know so many Esmereldas,” stated Gordon while speaking to Eddy Edwards on Caribbean Riddims radio show recently. “This story is a poignant story in these times we’re living in right now, but it speaks to so many issues within the social construct within which we have to exist…I believe it will connect with the audience and be a winner.”
The son’s dying wish is to meet the mother he’s never known. But Esmerelda is torn; America is home. If she leaves, there is no going back, but she has long yearned to be reunited with her only child, and going back now is her only chance.
“As a writer, one of the things you try to accomplish with your characters is that honesty and that resonance where that actor will take up that role and oh my gosh this is an amazing character, its an amazing role,” Griffiths explained after hearing Gordon beam about immersing herself in the role.
The full interview can be heard here and the trailer for the film can be viewed on youTube.
