Sudz Sutherland On The Evolution of 'Home Again'

Home Again My name is Sudz Sutherland and together with writer/producer Jen Holness, we headed the team that brought the film Home Again to life. Home Again is a compelling dramatic feature film that looks at three deportees — people who were born in Jamaica, but left as children. Tatyana Ali (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Glory Road), CCH Pounder (The Shield, Avatar) and Lyric Bent (Saw, Rookie Blue) star.   Seven years ago Home Again started as a documentary idea between Jen and myself. Jen had a friend who was deported a couple of years prior to that. One morning she ran across his obituary in the paper. He was killed in Kingston, after successfully turning his life around. Stunned, we resolved to find out more about this story. We had pitched a documentary about deportation, but gotten no love. Finally, we re-approached the National Film Board of Canada and they agreed to give us a small travel grant. Soon after Jen and I made the trip to Kingston, Jamaica and interviewed over 40 deportees, bringing the crushing statistics to life. (Jamaica has 34,000 deportees, more than seven times it’s prison population.) Once we got to Kingston we saw a world unlike the Jamaica that I had been introduced to as a boy growing up. The lush island encircled by what seemed to be an endless beach was nowhere to be seen. Kingston is a big city; a smoggy, hard place where a great deal of deportees make up the homeless population. You see them everywhere, trying to eke out a living by begging or performing odd jobs.  Our most memorable interview was a guy called Philip. He was an outpatient in a rehab program and he had been stabbed, burnt, shot, beaten…you name it. Philip said he wasn’t afraid anymore, because whatever you could do to a body, it had already been done to him and he survived. I’m from Toronto and Philip’s accent sounded exactly like mine. We talked about the same malls, the same high schools – we grew up in practically the same neighborhood. I could see by the look on his face that it was kind of tweaking him, to talk about those long ago familiar places with someone again. He spoke of the daughters he left behind, now young adults. I thought of my own daughters, and shuddered to think of not being around to see them grow up. We thanked Philip for telling his story. He seemed to be in a hurry, and we asked him where he was going. He said that he was going to buy some crack and he was going to get high. He saluted us and walked out of the room.   After interviewing the deportees in Jamaica, people awaiting deportation and some of the people left behind, it became clear to us that we could fashion a heartfelt, searing drama out of this material. Home Again is designed as an entertaining picture that sheds light on the subject, but ultimately tells a tale that asks the audience the question – What would you do if you were stripped of all that you call home — all support, everything familiar to you — who would you be? The scripting process for Home Again was distilling our interviews and research into three flesh and blood characters that would take the audience on an exciting, dangerous journey, seeing life through the eyes of a deportee.  Deportees are akin to an "untouchable" class. They are universally despised and are blamed for the violence on the island. Without any resettlement or reintegration programs, these people are being set up to fail. Many of these deportees have little connection to the island, and for that and other reasons – a crime that used to get you a few months in jail, can now effectively get you a death sentence.