Story

Based on an award-winning, autobiographical novel and Off-Broadway stage play of the same name- Brownsville Bred is a feature film drama that spans the 1980s coming-of-age and milestones of Elaine--a spunky, hip-hop loving, New York Puerto Rican girl who learns to appreciate life through the lessons of her father's mistakes and the deteriorating Brownsville, Brooklyn neighborhood she calls home.--

 

Through Elaine's eight-year-old, precocious eyes, life is perfect. Living in the welfare projects of the crime capital of New York, "ain't no thang but a chicken wing." 

 

Her besties and biggest fans are her intellectually disabled aunt, Elizabeth, and her gifted singer/songwriter father, Manny.

 

Manny's salsa music and the delicious aroma of her loving Mom, Carmen's mouth-watering arroz con pollo permeate Elaine's 12th-floor apartment. 

 

Theirs is one of only a handful of Latino households in their predominately African-American neighborhood of Brownsville. 

 

Elaine is the youngest of four children. She puts up with her annoyingly cool jokester brothers, Benjamin and Danny, and she looks up to her wise older sister, Ana.

 

Although her father treats her siblings as his own, Elaine is Manny's only biological child. She is the apple of Manny's eye, and despite what Elaine considers his "horrible taste in music," she adores him equally. 

 

But when a late-night police search of their home brings Manny's heroin addiction to light - life for Elaine will never be the same again.

 

Manny leaves Brownsville and the family for his Cataño, Puerto Rico hometown.

 

Elaine enters her teen years estranged from Manny. 

 

Due to the ever-increasing dangers in Brownsville, she is made to stay home with Elizabeth. They observe life primarily from Elaine's strict maternal Grandmother's (Abuela's) apartment window.

 

Like most teens, Elaine longs to be a part of her community. 

 

She copes by writing rap songs and pushing down the shame and hurt associated with her father's addiction; however, unresolved pain always resurfaces, and, in Brownsville, everyday teenage rebellion will bring unintended, heightened consequences. 

 

Fearing for the road ahead, Elaine's mother, Carmen, forces her to spend the remainder of one summer with a now-rehabilitated Manny in Puerto Rico.

 

Manny tries desperately to make up for their lost years. But Elaine's pent-up resentment and distrust will keep him at bay.

 

But through their time together, his music, and witnessing Manny's devotion to the Pentecostal church, the love of her father will find its way back into Elaine's heart. 

 

Elaine will open up to the culture she never felt akin to and begin to let go of the dark past holding hostage her once bright outlook. 

 

But not everything is as it seems, and complicated truths will bring new heartbreak and spiraling behaviors that some will never come back from.