In ‘If I Go Will They Miss Me,’ a family seeks healing under the LAX flight path

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Six years ago, jet fuel was dumped from the sky onto a working-class city near Los Angeles International Airport, spattering onto children at an elementary school. For writer and director Walter Thompson-Hernández, who grew up nearby, the incident sparked a coming-of-age story that grapples with the contradictions of life under the LAX flight path. His new film, “If I Go Will They Miss Me,” stars Oscar nominee Danielle Brooks and opened in U.S.

It follows a family searching for connection in the LA neighborhood of Watts. ​“There’s 800 airplanes that fly into LAX every single day. What that does for us is it gives us 800 opportunities to dream, right?

But with that dream also comes a terror,” said the filmmaker, citing his own asthma. “This movie is about how we juxtapose so many different things, like love and pain, healing and hurt … how the same person that can help you to grow can also strip you of your innocence.” The new film expands on the former journalist’s award-winning short film of the same title, which he began writing shortly after a Delta Air Lines jet traveling from Los Angeles to Shanghai in 2020 dumped 15,000 gallons of fuel over the city of Cudahy and nearby neighborhoods because it was experiencing engine trouble. A lawsuit filed by teachers at Park Avenue Elementary School against the airline said the jet fuel drizzled down like raindrops, causing skin and lung irritation for both teachers and children.

Delta last year agreed to a $79 million settlement. ​“For me, what that did was it just reminded me of how complicated and how beautiful and how heartbreaking it is to exist and to love under the LAX flight path,” Thompson-Hernández said. The film transforms Thompson-Hernández’s childhood longing for his father into myth The film follows a young boy named Lil Ant, played by newcomer Bodhi Jordan Dell, who views his distant father with a reverent admiration, likening him to Poseidon and Odysseus.

Alphonse Nicholson play Lil Ant’s parents, Lozita and Big Ant — loosely based on Thompson-Hernández’s real-life friends. Lil Ant is a version of the filmmaker. He remembers growing up not knowing his father and creating mythologies about where and who he was.

“I created this like larger-than-life figure,” he said. “And what I found was that I wasn’t the only one in my neighborhood who was doing tha… Delta last year agreed to a $79 million settlement.​“For me, what that did was it just reminded me of how complicated and how beautiful and how heartbreaking it is to exist and to love under the LAX flight path,” Thompson-Hernández said.The film transforms Thompson-Hernández’s childhood longing for his father into mythThe film follows a young boy named Lil Ant, played by newcomer Bodhi Jordan Dell, who views his distant father with a reverent admiration, likening him to Poseidon and Odysseus.