Children Of God

By: Scott Cranin
In-House Review - Jan 12 2012

The gorgeous beaches and towns of the Bahamas are the setting for Children of God, a strong and tender romantic drama from first-time filmmaker Kareem Mortimer. Percolating under the hot sun and sand are religious intolerance, political grand-standing, family woes and hopefully enough love to conquer them all.

Johnny (Johnny Ferro) is an art student in Nassau whose technique is perfect, but he's creatively blocked. His teacher sends him off to the rural island of Eleuthera where he meets Romeo (Stephen Tyrone Williams), a hot musician. They begin a clumsy dance of attraction and romance. Romeo has a fiancé and is identified as straight, but he's been known to play with the boys on the side secretly. The Bahamas are bound by religious traditions that discourage homosexuality and end up gay men into the closet. Lena is a pastor's wife. Her husband demonizes homosexuality to further his career, yet he's on the DL as well. When Lena discovers that her husband has infected her with VD, he accuses her of infidelities. These characters are all bound together in this intense drama of love, family and secrets.

Beautifully paced and with three separate story-lines that merge at the film's climax, the filmmaker really has done a great job with his small budget. Children of God has won several festival awards and been opening and closing night at many others, for good reason - it's a wonderful film. With extraordinary cinematography, a vacation worthy setting, naturalistic actors and a mythic story Children of God is a superb tale of "a pair of star-cross'd lovers."

By: SexyIzMe

I love watching films like this because it shows the truth of people in everyday life. We live trying to fit in -- fighting who we really are so people don't judge us or hurt us. So that's why I really love this film -- and the Cast was awesome. Thank you for letting me see this wonderful film.

By: MadeInBrooklyn

I was lucky enough to see this film at the quad in NYC and actually felt it was really gorgeously shot and well-acted. Stephen Tyrone Williams was at the screening-(I love New York! ).The film is a romance story between a white Bahamian and a black Bahamian and a conservative Christian woman. I found Stephen Tyrone Williams who plays Romeo and Margaret Kemp who plays the Christian woman marvelous and very nuanced. I wonder how the movie would have been if both boys were black, but that's just me. Still I really enjoyed this film.

By: FilmLover

For a project that has done so well at the festival level, imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a melodrama that didn't even amount to a soap opera.

To be sure, the filmmakers took great efforts to make this film look and sound great. The production value of shooting something in the Bahamas raises the stakes for all LGBT films. I'm even certain that the actors in this film did their very best with whatever the script and director provided to them.

The problem is that this is a stiff and dispirited film overall. The hangdog atmosphere surrounding each lead character isn't evocative, it's uncomfortable. I would harbor a guess that Johnny Ferro has the potential to be a good actor, but either he's made to play his role in a far too muted way, or he didn't know how to bring a quiet character to life (and I don't think it's the latter). There is no dynamism in the performance at all. Stephen Williams tries to ignite a flame into the proceedings but there's not enough around him to make a real spark. Margaret Kemp, as a pastor's wife, plays a character that is not developed as much as it should be and by the end, any possibility in seeing something in her is gone.

Meanwhile the ending is just all too typical claptrap gay tragedy, even if the director's intent is to demonstrate the problems that truly exist in the sunny but fiercely traditional Caribbean. It's a shame that something striking on its exterior can be rather dull and uninspiring in its core.

By: Amos Lassen

"Children of God"
Gay in the Bahamas
Amos Lassen
Christians believe that we are all God's children and in the Bahamas fundamental Christians set up rallies to scare the gay population there. We meet Jonny (Johnny Ferro), a young white artist who is suicidal and he is worried that he could lose his scholarship at the university because his professors believe he has more talent than what he considers himself to have. He decides to leave Nassau and move to the island of Eleuthera where he will create his masterpiece and then take his own life. Then there is Lena Mackey (Margaret Laurena Kemp), a middle-aged anti-gay activist. She discovers that the man she married is not what she thought so she decides that she must work to limit the rights of gay people and she goes to Eleuthera so that she can organize opposition to the gays in the Bahamas. Lena and Jonny's lives come into contact and Jonny gains the inspiration to paint as well as discovers new reasons to be alive.
Directed by Bahamian, Kareem Mortimer, we get to see a great deal of information about his homeland. He looks at identity and gay politics and he provides us with a valuable look at the Bahamas which seems to reflect the issues that exist everywhere.

When Jonny gets to Eleuthera, we see that he has met Romeo (Steven Tyrone Williams), who is black, and they embarked on a love affair but Romeo's fiancée and his mother drop in Jonny unprepared. Lena also gets there and begins to build her ministry. The film is beautifully photographed and yet it still carries an important message. We see that amid the beauty of the islands that this is no Garden of Eden. Homophobia is rampant and rabid and endorsed by religion. We know that the Bahamas is one of the most homophobic countries in the world today. There have been murders and out and out oppression in the gay community there and because of this Mortimer wants to bring attention to the situation. This is the first Bahamian gay themed film and it exposes the hatred that exists there as well as the feelings of fear and dread.
This is also a daring film in the way that is shows an interracial couple in love in a place where this is not allowed. There is a sense of darkness that hovers over the film and the film does exactly what Mortimer wants it to do-it leaves the viewer with a feeling of discomfort. Even with that discomfort, this is a beautiful film that deals with very important issues and it shows us what a good independent film should be.