Poseidon, Medusa & Pegasus in South Central LA?! | Film Breakdown

What if Medusa, Poseidon and Pegasus lived in South Central Los Angeles? That’s part of the mythology at the heart of Walter Thompson-Hernández’s "If I Go Will They Miss Me", a film that uses Greek mythology, magical realism and the imagination of a young boy to explore fatherhood, masculinity, absence, love and what it means to come home. As a Greek filmmaker, I was immediately fascinated by the way this film takes mythology out of the museum and makes it alive again. Lil Ant sees his father as Poseidon, his mother through Medusa, and himself through Pegasus because sometimes mythology gives us a language for the people and emotions that feel too big to understand. But this film goes far beyond Greek mythology. In this video, I talk about: ✦ Greek mythology as a way of understanding complicated people we love ✦ South Central LA becoming its own mythological landscape ✦ Black fatherhood, masculinity, vulnerability and tenderness ✦ J. Alphonse Nicholson’s incredible performance ✦ Walter Thompson-Hernández’s magical realism and visual language ✦ Airplanes and flight as symbols of freedom, absence, possibility and environmental harm ✦ Why cultural specificity can make a story more universal — not less ✦ Why I believe this film has the potential to become a cinematic classic And yes… I’m making a personal commitment to try to bring this film to Greece one day. Ideally, I would love to see it screened somewhere connected to Poseidon himself. Support independent cinema. Watch "If I Go Will They Miss Me". Take someone you love or call them afterward, because you’re probably going to want to talk about it. #IfIGoWillTheyMissMe #GreekMythology #FilmAnalysis #BlackCinema #IndependentFilm #WalterThompsonHernandez #JAlphonseNicholson #MagicalRealism #FilmEssay #Cinema