Jessie Anthony is a filmmaker who started big and doesn’t seem to be interested in slowing down. Her first film, a feature-length drama called Brother, I Cry, premiered this fall at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

“Some days. I'm like, should I have started with a short film?” Anthony says about her first project outside of film school. “Because a lot of people will shoot a short, and they'll produce it, and they'll get it at festivals, and then people know who they are, right? And so I'm like, I swear, I swear, I shot a movie. It's coming, I swear.”

Brother, I Cry tells the story of a young Indigenous man, Jon (Justin Rain) who is fighting addiction, as well as the women around him who both support and enable him. Containing a mix of her own autobiographical experiences, Anthony says the story was inspired by a dream.

“It was a dream that I had about my brother overdosing and coming to me and saying, ‘I need you to find my body. I don't know where I am,’” says Anthony “And so in my dream I went searching for him. When I woke up, I felt this overwhelming fear of ‘This is going to be my reality.’ So I needed to say something, I really needed to say something.”

This dream became the script for an 18-minute short film she created as a part of the Indigenous Independent Filmmaking Program at Capilano University. She then used footage from that short to secure funding to make her feature.

Brother, I Cry is a truly beautiful creation that displays Anthony’s natural talent, not only as a writer and director, but as a collaborator.

While demonstrating the challenges faced by Jon, the story focuses on the impact of his addiction on his community—especially his mother, sister and pregnant girlfriend. 

You can feel the lived experience informing the film’s shades, as it navigates the complexity of loving and living with a person facing addiction. Throughout the story, each of the women try different tactics when dealing with Jon— at times supporting, putting up boundaries, or directly enabling him.

“People think a drug addict is this particular stereotype thing. And it's like, no, there are so many people who are coping in so many different ways,” says Anthony. 

“Their everyday movements are not the same, but there's this underlying familiarity with an addict no matter what. Their actions and their characteristics are the same and the frustrations of the people around them are the same… So I wanted to show that as much as we try to make boundaries. We're actually enabling. We're still enablers. And that's our sense of control as the females around him is to say, ‘Well, no, you can't.’”

Visually, Brother, I Cry is stunning, with shots that are powerfully composed and lit by cinematographer Andy Hodgson. The cast as a whole delivers nuanced, compelling performances.

Jessie Anthony won the BC Emerging Filmmaker Award from VIFF, and it’s obvious to see why. Look out for what she is going to do.

Next, Anthony is working on a web series called Querencia with Mary Galloway, telling the story of two Indigenous, queer women who find one another as well as another film called Bingo Nights, a bingo heist film she calls an “ode to my grandmother.”