Benjamin Bratt wouldn’t call La Mission a homecoming.

5 Stick Films

Benjamin Bratt stars in La Mission, as a man who disowns his son when he learns that his son is gay. The movie was directed by Bratt’s brother Peter.

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The veteran Hollywood actor teamed with his filmmaking brother, Peter, for his latest film, which brought the siblings back to the San Francisco neighborhood where they grew up for a father-son story about tolerance and resisting violence.

“I never had a sense of ever leaving,” Bratt said during a recent promotional stop in Dallas. “The Mission has never been far from what I consider to be a personal touchstone.”

In the film, Bratt plays Che, a bus driver and ex-convict in the Mission district who spends most of his free time with his buddies customizing classic cars in his garage. Che is the single father of a teenage son (Jeremy Ray Valdez) who secretly has a white boyfriend in the suburbs. Once Che finds out, he disowns his son and threatens violence if he returns. Only with the help of a compassionate new neighbor (Erika Alexander) does he rediscover the importance of family.

While the character-driven story was important, the siblings also wanted to showcase the setting — a neighborhood with a mostly Latino population that has a rich artistic history and various unique cultural traditions.

“The neighborhood has always had a presence in our lives — socially, artistically and politically,” said Bratt, who lived part-time in San Francisco as recently as 2005. “It’s always been alive and very dynamic, so it had a great impression on us. We actually tried to infuse the film with that spirit that has been there for decades, even though it’s changed quite a bit since we were young.”

In San Francisco geography, the Mission district is adjacent to the Castro, which is home to a large segment of the city’s gay and lesbian population. Peter Bratt said the proximity of the two made for an interesting study of their differences.

Peter Bratt

“You can have two neighborhoods right next to each other, and they could be worlds apart,” he said. “What you find, not just in the Latino community but in other minority communities, is when a person does come out, often times there is rejection from the family and from the cultural community.”

Several characters in the film are inspired by actual people or composites of people the Bratt brothers knew growing up. In particular, the main character of Che is loosely based on a man who did not have a gay son but did have anger issues that affected his relationships.

It was the background of the real-life Che that prompted the filmmakers to include a few sequences involving low-rider classic cars, although city regulations have since significantly curtailed the practice of low-riding — or weekend cruising in custom cars — in the Mission. But low-riding was a lifestyle that extended to fashion, music and spirituality.

“He was someone we admired,” Benjamin said of the real Che. “The beautiful thing about San Francisco is it has such an amazing amalgam of different cultural influences. The whole ‘cholo’ aesthetic was part of our schooling. It wasn’t necessarily gang-associated at the time, but it had some pop-culture influence. We admired the aesthetic and almost the sense of ritual that goes into everything. So we grew up, although not steeped in that cultural perspective, with an appreciation for it.”

Peter Bratt wrote the part of Che especially for his brother, and the two spent plenty of time refining the character and finding his darker side before filming began.

“He really had to evolve to another level that requires non-violence,” Peter said of Che. “For me, I think he’s a great metaphor for where we’re at as a culture. Our culture moves forward using the same ethos: Might makes right. Violence is a really primitive way of settling conflict. The character is at the threshold of great change and has to really make a decision on how to move forward.”

Despite the challenges associated with shooting a low-budget film on location in San Francisco, Peter said current residents of the Mission were welcoming and eager to see the story told. Filming was completed in 26 days in 2008.

“It is difficult, but we called on community leaders and people we knew and grew up with, so we had the support of the community,” said Peter, who is a member of the city’s film commission. “When we came, there had been a dearth of production, so the city kind of rolled out its red carpet.”

La Mission is the first film for the Bratt brothers under their new production company, 5 Stick Films. Benjamin agreed that shooting on location was a risk that was rewarded by the reception of the community.

“Our respectful intent was to shine a light on people in the neighborhood and to get their participation, which was key to the success of the film — to lend it the authenticity that we were trying for,” Benjamin said. “There was a sense of gratification that someone wanted to focus on one of their stories.”

La Mission is now playing at area theaters.

TODD JORGENSON can be reached at 940-566-6871. His e-mail address is tjorgenson@dentonrc.com.