LOS ANGELES – Six years ago, jet fuel rained down on a working-class community near Los Angeles International Airport, striking children at an elementary school. For Walter Thompson-Hernández, a writer and director who grew up nearby, the incident became the starting point for a coming-of-age story about the beauty and contradictions of life beneath the LAX flight path.
His debut feature, “If I Go Will They Miss Me,” starring Oscar nominee Danielle Brooks, opened in U.S. theaters Friday. Set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, the film follows a family struggling to find connection.
“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 Thompson-Hernández, referring in part to 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 feature builds on Thompson-Hernández’s award-winning short film of the same name. He began writing it after a Delta Air Lines jet traveling from Los Angeles to Shanghai dumped 15,000 gallons of fuel over Cudahy and surrounding neighborhoods in 2020 while dealing with engine trouble. In a lawsuit against the airline, teachers at Park Avenue Elementary School said the fuel fell like rain and caused skin and lung irritation among teachers and children. Delta agreed last year 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.
In the film, a childhood longing for an absent father grows into a modern myth.
The story centers on Lil Ant, played by newcomer Bodhi Jordan Dell, a boy who views his distant father with awe, comparing him to figures such as Poseidon and Odysseus. Brooks and J. Alphonse Nicholson portray Lil Ant’s parents, Lozita and Big Ant, characters loosely inspired by Thompson-Hernández’s real-life friends.
Lil Ant reflects the filmmaker’s own childhood. Thompson-Hernández grew up without knowing his father and filled that absence by imagining who he might be and where he might have gone.
“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 that … I think that’s what’s universal about this movie is that we have a boy here who wants so deeply to be loved by a father who doesn’t have the tools to love him. And in spite of that, he still sees him as a Greek god. You know, how beautiful is that? How tragic is that?”
“If I Go Will They Miss Me” is a contemplative film steeped in Greek mythology and recurring images of aircraft, ocean waves, and purple and blue tones. It also serves as a visual and musical love letter to Los Angeles. Thompson-Hernández frames the story with the city’s deep blue sky, which he describes as a symbol of hope and a tribute to his hometown.
Brooks, who received an Oscar nomination for her supporting performance in the 2023 musical “The Color Purple,” called the project a “breath of fresh air.” The role gave her an opportunity to reveal a different dimension of her work.
“I want to see it win,” she said about the film. “I just want people to know that there’s something out there in this art form that can help you see yourself. And also help you reflect on yourself.”
His career has focused on documenting Southern California’s communities and subcultures.
Thompson-Hernández’s short film won a jury prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Before moving into filmmaking, he worked as a journalist for The New York Times, where he explored Southern California subcultures and his own dual Black American and Mexican-American identity. His 2020 nonfiction book, “The Compton Cowboys,” followed a group of Black American cowboys preserving the city’s Black Western heritage.
Some may describe his work as highlighting overlooked communities. Thompson-Hernández sees it differently: He is documenting the families and neighbors he encountered throughout his own life.
“My world is full of people who are loving and beautiful and complicated, and in need of stories that reflect how multifaceted they are and how they’re able to dream and love and repair,” he said.
Repair provides the film’s emotional center. Thompson-Hernández hopes the story encourages audiences to consider how a younger generation can build a future shaped by hope and healing.
He points to a scene in which Lozita apologizes to Lil Ant for failing to protect him during a tense encounter with his father.
“I just didn’t grow up in a home where people apologized to each other,” he said. “How do we not just break the chain, but create a new chain that feels healthy? … How lucky am I to explore these questions that I’ve had my entire life that now are able to come out in a movie.”
