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A scene from "Boys of Bate,'' a movie made by teenagers who tell the story of their time in a drug treatment program at Newark's Integrity House.
(Courtesy of Integrity House)
His first name is Steve.
He's not comfortable revealing his last name, but maybe he'll feel differently when the applause comes his way.
Steve and his band of young brothers made a short film last year about their lives, and they're keeping their fingers crossed that it stops another kid from making the bad decisions that they did.
The "Boys of Bate" is a story of hope and transformation, and for the 18 New Jersey teenagers who made the movie, work on its filming and production helped them to face their addictions and save their lives.
"I never thought I would change, turn my life around the way I did,'' says Steve, now 19.
Heroin had twisted his world in Camden County. He wound up at the Bate Adolescent Program in Newark in an attempt to straighten out his life. Bate serves kids who are 13 to 18 years old, and it is one of many residential treatment programs of Integrity House, a well-known substance abuse rehabilitation center in the heart of the city.
It is a structured program for teens, but "lights, camera, action" was never part of the curriculum until Roman Petrocelli, director of Bate, stumbled onto the idea.
He wanted to have a program in place for the summer months, to keep them engaged at a time of year when kids can relapse.
Everything clicked after Petrocelli and the kids saw a movie titled "Nicknames," which shows how young people in Newark deal with social issues such as violence, bullying and peer pressure.
The question became - what if the Bate kids made a short film about their journey?
"That would be cool if we did something like that,'' Steve says, remembering that day.
The kids were excited, but there were many questions about how would they do it. Petrocelli scoured the Internet and found information on making a film.
"They jumped on the project, because they were able to change themselves,'' he says.
Some of the teens celebrate a good time in their lives in this scene from "The Boys of Bate."
Once he saw how serious the kids were about making the film, Petrocelli sought help from professionals, who volunteered their time and guided the kids through the process. The pros taught them how to use camera equipment and recording devices such as an overhead boom microphone. They went to a recording studio, where they cut the score for the movie's original song - "Integrity Changed My Life." The script? They did that, too, developing roles and storylines. Steve is one of the lead characters, a part he earned during auditions conducted by his peers. They weren't playing around. What they thought would be a nine-minute film morphed into a 43-minute story that made its way onto the big screen last night at the Clairidge Cinema in Montclair.
It was a fundraiser for the Bate program that drew attention from actors and artists. Jamal Woolard, who portrayed rapper The Notorious B.I.G. in the film "Notorious" (2009), came out to support the fellas and the film. Federico Castelluccio, an artist and actor who played Furio Giunta on HBO's "The Sopranos," also attended and donated a painting for a silent auction held during a dinner that followed the showing.
There was a red carpet and all of the trimmings of a premiere put into motion by Franco Porporino Jr., owner of Fresco's, the restaurant that hosted the dinner. Porporino, who manages four-time Golden Globe Nominee and Emmy Winner Armand Assante, embraced the project after he met Petrocelli last year.
This wasn't the plan when everything started in May. Five months of filming ended in September, with parents watching the movie at a private screening and the kids in awe of what they had done.
"It snowballed into something very loving, warm, caring and relatable," Petrocelli says.
The teens and their advisers went on location to film some of the movie's scenes.
In the movie, Steve is arrested with his friend for selling drugs in front of a drug treatment facility for teens. After they are released from a detention center, they are reunited at a treatment facility, where they believe they can do whatever they want. Wrong. The experience changes them, teaching them about honesty along the way, in the effort to make their lives turn out right. And that's what many of the kids came to grips with in the Bate program. Some didn't want to buy in to their recovery when they got there, but making the movie changed that. It gave them a reason to shape up. Steve knew he needed help and he didn't resist. The movie reinforced his desire to get well because he was so miserable. The talented baseball player and straight "A" student was a dropout by the 11th grade. And his best friend overdosed a month before he showed up at Integrity House. "I was a mess," he says. "I pretty much lost everything good that I ever had." The magic of film, though, has way of taking hold and doing something special. The kids were having fun expressing themselves, which Petrocelli says allowed them to open up and see the importance of treatment. "My mission was to raise awareness that these programs exist and to lower the stigma of young men getting help," Petrocelli says. What they started can't stop here. Petrocelli says money from the fundraiser will purchase equipment, so they can do smaller, creative projects, such as public service announcements. As for Steve, one day, he'll lower the wall of anonymity. He was nervous about attending the movie showing last night and seeing himself on the screen in a room filled with people. But he came anyway, hoping the film gets that one kid to see the light as he did. Steve's lamp is bright. He's in community college, studying to be a drug counselor and he has a job at a mall department store. He has earned a driver's license, too. "I wouldn't be here without Integrity,'' he says. They showed him how to be happy without drugs. And he is.
Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or nj.com/carter of follow him on Twitter @Barry CarterSL