Filmmaker brings 'G-Dog' to Panida

SANDPOINT — For more than 25 years, Father Greg Boyle has served some of the toughest parts of L.A., where 1,100 gangs claim some 86,000 gang members and violent death is a daily ritual.

Oscar-winning cinematographer and Sandpoint resident Erik Daarstad spent about 18 months, on and off, chronicling the priest’s mission to shepherd youngsters out of gang life in a just-released film titled “G-Dog” — a moniker pulled from the term of endearment used by those he guides along the rocky road to a second chance in life.

Scheduled for its Sandpoint premier this coming weekend at the Panida Theater, the documentary marks the reunion of Daarstad and Academy Award-winning director Freida Mock. After Mock read a news clip about Father Greg and the business venture he created as a way out of the gang world, she approached the cinematographer about joining forces to make a film.

“Neither one of us really knew anything about him when we started,” said Daarstad. “It opened my eyes to things we don’t see much of in Sandpoint.”

Filming started in May 2010, immediately launching the lensman into a crash course in gang culture and the causes behind it.

“Poverty and a lack of hope are the main reasons,” he said. “Most of these kids come from broken, dysfunctional families. They get into gang life by age 12 or 13 because they’re looking for a family.”

As Father Boyle has learned, many gang members are just as eager to find a way out of this violent environment.

Working under the premise that “Nothing stops a bullet like a job,” the priest set up camp in a gang-neutral part of the city, on the borders of Chinatown, and opened the doors of a concern he calls Homeboy Industries. Kids began pouring in off the streets — as many as 12,000 of them a year — looking for a way out. By training former rival gang members to work together and then turn around to offer a hand up to the new recruits as they entered the program, the man they affectionately came to call G-Dog started a movement that even law enforcement officials held up as an effective alternative to perpetual incarceration.

As the priest puts it: “Jobs, not jail.”

The Homeboy path represents a striking U-turn for the people who decide to take it. The journey begins with free job training and tattoo removal, and then offers counseling, substance-abuse support groups and parenting classes. If the recruits stick to the program, which includes regular, random drug testing as a mandate, they move into line for jobs as bakers, cooks and servers in the Homeboy café, retail store and catering service, or printing t-shirts in the organization’s silk-screen shop.

“He’s made a real difference in gang violence and that whole gang scene,” Daarstad said.

The statistics seem to support that statement, since Homeboy claims that 70 percent of the people who complete its 18-month training program turn their back on gang life for good. That compares with a 70 percent recidivism rate for most other programs, according to information on the film’s web site.

The movie, which the L.A. Times called “one of the most inspirational, uplifting films of the year,” takes viewers behind the scenes and shines a light on the struggles the organization faces, including a financial crisis that nearly closed the doors at Homeboy. The entire movie feels up close and real — a fly-on-the-wall perspective on a very different world.

“It’s that way because Father Boyle and the organization gave us complete, unlimited access,” Daarstad said.

In one part of the film, the camera takes in the priest’s agonized decisions as he prepares to pull staff and employees together to announce the temporary closure of key parts of the business. He stands in tears as workers who have just received pink slips express their gratitude, not their rage, for how their lives have changed.

“They really love him for everything he does, everything he helps them with,” said Daarstad.

In an ironic twist, both Daarstad and Mock were embroiled in financial turmoil of their own while making the film. Unlike projects that include a team of technicians behind the director and cinematographer, most of the “G-Dog” filming was conducted by the duo as part of a bare bones approach to capturing the story.

“The main challenge, technically, was that there was no funding for this film when we started it,” Daarstad explained. “There was no sound person, because we couldn’t afford one, so I had to keep that in mind while I filmed.”

Warner Bros. saved the day when it viewed the raw footage and liked it enough to provide its editing and post-production facility, staff included, as a donation. Divine intervention due to the priestly subject matter?

“It probably helped,” the cinematographer answered.

“G-Dog” premiered at the Toronto Hot Docs International Film Festival in April, where it was voted Audience Favorite. The movie received that same award when it was shown at the Aspen Film Festival.

Beyond Daarstad’s involvement, “G-Dog” has another regional connection, since Father Boyle attended Gonzaga University before being ordained as a Jesuit priest in the mid-1980s and receiving an assignment to serve the poorest parish in East L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood.

As filming progressed, Daarstad found himself increasingly impressed by the priest’s compassion and commitment to work with the poor — a sentiment he shares with L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca, one of Homeboy’s most vocal supporters.

“Father Boyle is a unique individual who understands the situation these kids are in and is genuinely trying to help them get out of that life,” said Daarstad. “The L.A. Sheriff told us that he wouldn’t be surprised if, in a couple hundred years, he’s declared a saint.”

That’s a far cry from Homeboy’s early years, when law enforcement doubted how effective the organization might be and the priest was showered with hate mail from writers accusing him of coddling gang members who, they believed, should be locked up, not led out.

“That has really changed,” Daarstad said. “Now, people come from foreign countries to visit Homeboy Industries and see how he does it.”

Two former gang members, now senior staff members at Homeboy, will be on hand for the Sandpoint premier of the film, scheduled for June 7-8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Panida Theater. For Daarstad, it will be like seeing a couple of friends and returning the favor of showing them around his hometown.

“At Homeboy, everybody’s very compassionate and supportive of each other, which you see in the film,” he said. “Freida and I became part of the Homeboy family. By the time we were done, they were calling me ‘E-Dog.’”