It's a sunny spring day in Miami, the kind where the skies are a crispy blue and hints of winter still linger in the breeze. Filmmaker and city native Edson Jean takes a seat outside Imperial Moto Café in Little Haiti. His distinguishable dreadlocks are up in a bun atop his head. A few buttons are undone from his white linen top to take in the weather.
Jean spent a great deal of time sitting on these coffee tables and inside the Oolite Arts satellite offices next door, working on the script for his second feature film, Know Me. The film premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles earlier this year, and it's set to debut in Miami on Monday, April 7, during the Miami Film Festival. The writer/director/actor premiered his debut feature, Ludi, at MFF in 2021.
Know Me centers on a story plucked straight from the headlines. In 2012, Haitian-American Rudy Eugene attacked a man on the MacArthur Causeway, biting his face, and was later fatally shot by police. Early media reports led to wide speculation that Eugene was high on bath salts. He was dubbed the "Miami Zombie" in news coverage worldwide. A toxicology report later revealed Eugene only had traces of cannabis in his system.
Jean's film unpacks the story from the perspective of Eugene's family, whose names he changes in the movie out of respect.
"To be able to show the film locally, where it was filmed, and engage in a new dialogue around what is a story about the spreading of misinformation and mental health is exciting," says Jean ahead of his MFF screening. "I also love that we'll be at the Little Haiti Cultural Center because we're closer to the community and get to really echo this message about mental health awareness in our communities to our community."
While the story is known to many, it is deeply personal for Jean, who is close friends with Eugene's real-life brother, Marckenson Charles. The two met while studying acting in college. They instantly formed a bond as they were both the only two Haitian Americans in their year.
The idea for Know Me came to Jean after reading his friend's one-man show about the incident.
"Our form of therapy is what we've learned through the arts and acting," explains Jean. A loud bus drives by, and Jean instinctively clutches his fist and stops midsentence. "Sorry, the filmmaker in me needs to pause for sound."
Returning to his thought, he adds, "Our version of therapy is journaling and processing your ideas through paper and pen."
While living in New York, Charles began to process what had happened to him and his family in precisely that way. He drafted the one-man show that would later become Jean's full-length feature.
The pair worked together to develop the storyline and ensure they told Eugene and Charles' stories truthfully, respectfully, and authentically. Jean pulls triple duty in the film. He wrote the script, directed the film, and plays Charles' character, the film's protagonist, renamed Kenson Joseph for the screen.
"The screenwriting process itself was really therapeutic," says the filmmaker. "We knew we wanted to take a really intimate approach to a widely recognized story. I think the tendency, at first, was to have a larger scope and think about the national effects of the story, but as we were developing the script, we started to discover more."
Throughout months of writing, the duo uncovered many unknown aspects of the family's history. The pair interviewed family members and jumped headfirst into mental health research.
"The film also unpacks something that the general population really doesn't know about — how the Christian Haitian community here really kind of left the family on their own," says Jean. "It unpacks that journey of trying to vindicate the name of a family member, [while] at the same time not having all the pieces and not having all the answers."
Once Eugene's body was released to his family, they had a difficult time securing a proper burial for their son and brother. This is a key driver in the film, as Jean's character struggles to understand why his community has turned its back on his family and why people paint his brother as a monster.
While his character is based on his close friend, Jean takes artistic liberties in the role. But he remains true to the man he knows. "He was super supportive throughout the whole thing," says Jean of Charles.
Another actor was initially contracted for the role but had to pull out due to last-minute scheduling conflicts. Jean and Charles toyed with the idea of Charles playing himself, but that felt too close to home. So, instead, as someone who knew the material deeply and is a trained actor, Jean embraced the new challenge.
Jean tilts his head back and lets out a chuckle disguised as a sigh. "I won't do that again," he says. Smiling and giving it another thought, he adds, "I mean, who knows."
Know Me. 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 7, at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 NE 59th Ter., Miami; and Friday, April 11, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., #100, Miami. Tickets cost $15.50 via miamifilmfestival.com.