Getaway is a short film of twenty minutes in length written and produced by Malaika Paquiot and directed by Stephanie L. Mason. It is short but packs a wallop in that runtime. June (Melissa Kay Anderson) is a mother of a little boy Leighton (Ian Smalls Jr)) She takes him to her home country of Jamaica for a little vacation to show him where she came from. While there she introdroduces him to her cousin Grace (Kaci Hamilton) She is very close to her cousin. She is like a sister to her. While in Jamaica she gets the news of a travesty back in the states. A child has been accidentally shot by a police squad team. As a parent of a black child, this has to be one of the most devastating things for them to go through. The fact that this could be their child. Police shooting of Black men and women has become an epidemic in this country. It needs to stop but shielding a child from this violence is probably the right thing to do. It doesn’t adversely negatively affect them. The filmmaker and writer create a scenario that shows how difficult life can be for Black children or adults in this country. The actors were also very good in this short movie though. I would have liked to see a longer version of this story with more focus on what happened back in America and what the mother is doing about it in her community. Besides sheltering her son in Jamaica.
3 stars
Dan Skip Allen
From the Fourth Row! 