A Bronx filmmaker who works as an NYPD youth officer recently held a screening for his 17-minute film “Lanez,” a story of the powerful bond between young adult siblings who lost their parents years before to a house fire and have to find their own ways to survive in the inner city.
Jaylin Pressley was born and raised in Throggs Neck and has been a lifelong movie lover. He made his first film for a senior project in high school and graduated in 2017 from Hunter College with a bachelor’s degree in film. “I’ve been in love with it ever since, essentially,” he told the Bronx Times.
Pressley’s day job as an NYPD youth officer for the 52nd precinct inspired the fast-paced, dramatic story of “Lanez.” The story revolves around a young man named Victor, played by Guiseppe Esalva, who steals and sells flashy cars to provide for himself and his younger sister, Yasmin (Karlene Rivera, a South Bronx native). Their parents died years before in a house fire, and Victor turned to crime soon after, feeling he had no other option. But as a detective begins to close in on him, a longstanding secret threatens the fragile relationship between the siblings.
“Lanez” was filmed in the Bronx over a single weekend in July and screened Dec. 21 at Film Noir Cinema in Brooklyn. It was the cast and crew’s first time seeing the finished product — and on a big screen, no less.
“Everybody loved it,” Pressley said. “Everyone kept asking for a part two.”
Though filmmaking and police work may seem like different worlds, storytelling is the link between them, said Pressley. As a first responder, he and others often exchange stories about what they’ve been through, and that sharing brings people together, as does film.
Pressley also said his time at Hunter was pivotal to his creative growth. While some filmmakers don’t see film school as necessary, he said college got him in the habit of regularly producing and sharing work. Every week, he and others wrote ten pages of screenplay and talked through ideas, “like being in a writer’s room,” Pressley said. “Being in that environment helped me pursue, ok, this is what I want to do. I want to tell stories.”
Once Pressley had the idea for “Lanez,” he wrote the script with a friend, Khalil Waldron, and finished last April. He launched a campaign to raise about $5,550 on Seed and Spark, a crowdfunding platform for independent filmmakers, and immediately jumped on the work of pre-production. He found local actors and crew members, several of whom he had worked with before, and created a teaser and social media content to generate interest.
With the early work done, the rest started coming together quickly, which was by design, said Pressley. “Once you’re inspired by something, the longer you sit on it, the less inspired you become.”
However, the logistics of the project weren’t easy. Pressley had to scout locations, secure contracts for filming, take out insurance for equipment and even learn to perform physical stunts, as the story involves car chases and other dramatic scenes. When they finally began shooting in the Bronx, rainy weather set their entire schedule back by half a day. “It was a whole learning process for me,” Pressley said.
The challenges made it all the more satisfying when “Lanez” screened on Dec. 21 to an audience of about 50 people, just about maxing out the small Brooklyn theater’s capacity. Now, Pressley is aiming bigger: he just submitted “Lanez” to four local film festivals covering each borough and New Jersey and plans for more. Naturally, his dream goal is to show it in the Tribeca Film Festival, “but I know how hard and how political that can be,” Pressley said.
He said he hopes the film will be seen by more audiences, especially New Yorkers, and find its way to a streaming platform, and the enthusiastic response from the screening showed he’s moving in the right direction, said Pressley. “I’m very confident in the traction that this film is gaining.”
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
