[music] welcome to between the covers summer edition with jonathan de souver who is my guest today and i'm always happy to be in the same space with janitha there isn't time for me to tell you everything that this man has accomplished but here's a snapshot of this modern day renaissance man he's a filmmaker a public speaker a poet a teacher author of the two goodman chronicles books revelations road to redemption and to whom much is given janitha welcome nice to see you thank you for having me and nice to be here i have to go to your background first you are haitian american and if i can say this from port-au-prince to brooklyn to miami and all of your work embraces your heritage is this a conscious effort on your part it is a conscious effort on my part so yes from port-au-prince to brooklyn to philadelphia and miami uh and don't forget west palm beach and west palm beach of course and so everything i do embodies what i who i am in my identity and it's an important part of why of my creative work and also my educational work as well you're now in miami and there is a wonderful talented haitian american community there do you agree yes there's a vast vast majority of talented individuals in the haitian community outside of creative work they're doctors nurses engineers uh entrepreneurs it's it's such a plethora of amazing things that are happening here in miami in the haitian community well you are a filmmaker i said that your film the sweetest girl comes from the book revelations road to redemption give me an overview if you can of the story so the sweetest girl inspired by true events is a compelling and provocative love story set in haiti halted by human trafficking and gun violence it's about a loving marriage of 25 years that comes to a deadly end when a husband is compelled to tell his wife his most heart-shattering secret on her deathbed and it's only two chapters of revelations roadster redemption i was lucky enough and you allowed me to to to screen the film and thank you for that it was wonderful this is your first film and here you go you shoot this during the 2020 pandemic um what were those challenges there were tons and tons of challenges oh my gosh so the the back story the the film i this again this is my first film so i'm so grateful for for harry shady and samuel luducer so harry jd and sam and i have been friends it's a brotherhood of 30-plus years harry and sam did a film called a great day in harlem and so i i i called harry and said harry have you ever done a film based on or adapted by a book he says no i've never tried it this was around 2019. he said sure let's try this why not and right when we started doing casting in march of 2020 we all know what happened so 70 percent of our cast feel like 80 to 90 of our cast was auditioned through and and cast it through zoom we didn't most of us didn't meet each other until the first day of shooting on august 27 2020. that is amazing i know that you just saw the film for the first time on the big screen what did that feel like i i was holding back tears because of the talent and hard work that everyone has done um from the casting director rachel finley who's now in arizona to our director samuel leducer who's out in hella to harry who's in dc to the local actress of all the local actors genji shack known as the haitian denzel marie michelle de gea of rihanna amelien there's so many amazing work from the composers the the the makeup artist the costume designers it was the caterers the doctor that was on site and so it was such a culmination of amazing talent that came together in such a difficult time to create such an authentic compelling story that resonated so well with the audience you know you had control over this sometimes there there was a a something lacks between the book and the the film you are the master of both so how do you feel it worked well great great question great um i i felt it worked really well one of the challenges so this is my first screenplay uh 18 pages after 18 drafts uh harry was suggesting and saying it doesn't have to be word for word from the book and i said okay that's okay we just have to capture the essence of the story right and we were able to do that we were able to see lucious goodman a formidable detective but not only a formidable detective but a husband who has a sense of guilt in his past who loves his family but something something's tearing him apart inside we got a chance to see margaret a a an ap journalist in haiti who's seeking for truth not only in haitian politics but also on her marriage so we saw a compelling family and and multi-dimensional characters of haitian descent or who are haitian that you haven't seen before on the big screen jonathan are you the guy that sees no limits as to what you can accomplish and i ask you this because i met you quite a few years ago and we were talking poetry then you hadn't even written a novel i i am one of the things i tell a lot of individuals is i we all have a date with transition right we all or not none of us are going to make this alive out of this life right none of us are going to make uh get out of this situation alive so i don't want my last breath on this earth to be i wish i could i want to be able to tap into something or whatever gifts that's been calling me and answer that call so then i can inspire others to do the same to find the light within themselves to light the light to light the life of others that are going through some challenging times and to grow and build from there and again to inspire others to keep it moving you not only grew up as immigrant immigrant children do and they say a lot of them say it's like living with a foot in two different worlds but you also had trauma growing up as well was writing something that helped you at least make sense of the world writing is still something that helps me make sense of the world so at the age of five i experienced xenophobia where i was told i had hbo it's all haitian haitian go back to your nation or hbo stood for haitian body odor i'm like i don't even have cable television and then at seven i i encountered the my the first um my first encounter with death my sunday school teacher was shot and killed and then at nine i survived the barbershop shooting my parents said oh my goodness we're leaving brooklyn new york and we got to go to the city of brotherly love not realizing that my red car our red carpet welcoming was red tip crack bottles on my way to middle school i don't know if uh and if you ever had aol uh back in the day uh do you remember the aol emails absolutely yeah so my first aol email my password sadly because i didn't know i was black until i came to united states and watching tv in terms of representation anytime that individuals that looked like me on tv we were considered criminals and we were told we were going to die before 21. and so my first password sadly was capital d i e b 4 2 1 exclamation point and that was around 16 years old but that changed that change that changed because that because i know you and i know that change janice i want to lighten it up a little bit if we could could end on a lightning round and do a few quick questions one if life is a journey do you use a map or are you just winging it oh wow a combination of both a combination build okay my purpose is my map your purpose is your map what's a place you've never been to but you would love to visit oh my gosh japan i'd like to go to tokyo japan one day if you didn't have to sleep and something tells me that you actually don't what would you do with that time right i'd write i'd write right right right right and my last one the best thing that having a house full of girls and one boy has taught me patience and the power of joy i i feel joy every single day from their laughter even their screams and banging the pianos and so on and so forth i love it jonathan de server i always love chatting with you thank you thank you and i love chatting with you as well his book revelations the film the sweetest girl please join me on the next between the covers and you can find our podcast go between the covers wherever you get your podcasts [music] bye