“Mythologizing Airplanes” | Walter Thompson-Hernández, If I Go Will They Miss Me
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant transforms his working-class neighborhood beneath the LAX flight path into a living mythology, where family members become gods and the sky is crowded with endless departures. As he searches for connection with his god-like yet conflicted father, he finds support in his close-knit community that helps him reconcile myth and reality.
Screening Tuesday, May 5, at 4:30 p.m., at the Music Box Theatre, for this year’s Chicago Critics Film Festival, If I Go Will They Miss Me is a beautiful, honest, and sometimes painful portrait of parenthood, tracing that uneasy time when the desire to protect one’s own child comes at the expense of deeper presence in their lives. Set in the working-class Watts neighborhood in South Los Angeles, writer-director Walter Thompson-Hernández’s feature debut—starring Danielle Brooks and J. Alphonse Nicholson—is adapted from his acclaimed short of the same name (2022 Sundance Film Festival, Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction).
Ahead of the screening, Thompson-Hernández graciously took the time to answer this year’s CCFF filmmaker questionnaire. Below, his individual responses.
How did you first become interested in filmmaking? What was your path toward directing your first film?
I’ve always loved films. Since I was a child. I arrived at filmmaking through journalism. I used to work at The New York Times, where i covered global subcultures. I used to write, photograph, direct, produce, and think of the stories I worked on. I felt like that was my film school! I moved on from the Times and made my first short film: a film of the same title [as this feature,] which won [a prize at] Sundance in 2022. That’s how it all began.
What inspired you to make the film you're bringing to the festival?
I was inspired by the people and myths in my community. I was the boy in the movie – the boy who looked up at dreamed and mythologized airplanes.
Tell us about a film that you consider a guiding influence (whether it has informed your overarching vision as a filmmaker, directly informed the title you're bringing to the festival, or both).
I’m deeply inspired by Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep. What a joy to make a movie in the same movie as Charles. He’s one of my biggest inspirations. And one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.
Tell us about a location that's held significance to the film you're bringing to the festival: a setting where filming took place, a geographic area that provided a source of inspiration, or another type of space that comes to mind for you in thinking about the film. What made this place so special?
I’m deeply inspired by Watts and surrounding communities. There’s a beautiful way that people create mythologies in communities like Watts where I was raised. Myth helps us understand the mysteries of the world. And Watts has always been at the forefront of that.
The theatrical experience brings us together to celebrate artistic experience and expand our horizons as human beings. Tell us about a memorable theatrical experience from your life.
I remember being seven years old and watching movies with my aunt at a local theatre. They used to have three-for-one movie days on weekends. And it seemed like we spent entire days there. We would walk in with light outside and leave when it was dark. What a sweet memory.
