Tagline: Can love survive the fall of paradise?
There is no greater disaster than greed. — Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC-531 BC)
Imagine you just got a fax that the Feds will be at your door in a matter of minutes. The government has remembered the taxes you forgot to pay and it’s time to take an extended vacation. No problem – you can pack light and still get by with a little extra weight strapped around your midsection – 28 lbs. to be exact – the weight of a cool million in hundred dollar bills.
Such is the case with corrupt businessman Carl Ridley (Bill Paxton). He let his greed get the better of him, and now he’s on the run, his daughter Pippa (Agnes Bruckner) reluctantly in tow. Just turned 18, Pippa is not happy to leave her friends and comfortable life in Miami, even if it’s for the exotic Cayman Islands, but Dad’s in kind of a rush, so there’s no time for questions.
When they get to the islands, Ridley is preoccupied. Banks are rapidly closing and he’s got to find a clean place to store his dirty money. In fact, he doesn’t even notice that the bungalow he rented is already occupied — but his daughter sure does. She finds native Caymanian Fritz (Victor Rasuk) sleeping off a late night in her bed, and when she walks in on him, he flees out the window, leaving his wallet behind.
Suddenly Pippa’s not so sorry about landing in paradise. She tracks down Fritz and discovers that the local bad boy is a real charmer who’s more than willing to show her the island, including its wild parties. Suddenly Pippa’s not so sorry about landing in paradise. She tracks down Fritz and discovers that the local bad boy is a real charmer who’s more than willing to show her the island, including its wild parties.
But Fritz has a dark side, too. He owes money to island gang leader Ritchie Ritch (Raz Adoti), and when he spies Pippa’s dad handling a lot of cash, Fritz suddenly knows how to get Ritchie off his back. Unaware that she’s leading her father into even more trouble than he had in the United States, Pippa and her innocence are headed for a rude awakening.
Also about to have their innocence destroyed are young lovers Shy and Andrea (Orlando Bloom and Zoë Saldana), who finally consummate their passion, only to be discovered by Andrea’s brother, gang wannabe Hammer (Anthony Mackie). Acting on his father’s wishes, Hammer is bent on ending the relationship… no matter what it takes.
Written and directed by native Caymanian Frank E. Flowers, and filmed entirely in the 100-square mile West Indies paradise, Haven is an edgy, suspenseful, viscerally gripping ensemble film in which unconnected lives intersect and ignite a violent chain of events that turns tranquility into chaos. In an instant, greed collides with innocence and passion goes up against those who forbid it, and all at once an idyllic tropical refuge becomes anything but safe.
Writing From Experience
When you know your material as intimately as 24-year old Frank E. Flowers, passion sets the pace, so it’s no surprise that the young writer/director was able to shoot his first feature film in 29 days. Born and raised in the Cayman Islands, Flower’s says he doesn’t consider himself a historian or a sociologist, but he does know his way around the islands and a great deal about the rich texture of its culture.
“There are just over 40,000 people on my island,” says Flowers, “and according to the most recent census, only 53% of them are technically locals or Caymanians. Also, there are 93 different countries represented in our population, and a large imported workforce of ex-patriot labor, consisting mostly of other West Indians, Americans and Brits. With such a diverse population there isn’t a paradigm for what a person from the Cayman Islands looks or speaks like. We’re human chameleons.”
With a cultural groundwork as fertile as that, Flowers had no trouble developing the diverse characters that cross paths in Haven. “Since the Caymans are only 480 miles south of Miami — about an hour by commercial flight away — it’s no wonder that a number of corrupt individuals look for sanctuary here,” says Flowers. “They’re the perfect catalyst for telling a story about the fall of paradise.”
Not leaving this “paradise” until he was 17 years old, when he headed for film school at USC, Flowers says that he wishes he could say he spent his formative years watching movies and studying directors, but that wasn’t the case. “We had only one movie theater on the island, and it played the same Hollywood blockbusters over and over again. Sometimes films wouldn’t change for months. So when I went to the theater, it was the stories that took place in the seats around me that proved most interesting.
Even today, going to the movies here is an interactive experience,” laughs Flowers. “Patrons will often field phone calls, shout at the screen and carry on their lives with the movie playing in the background.”
Being that the island wasn’t overly saturated with produced entertainment, Flowers says that he and his friends found ways to entertain themselves. “That’s how I became a storyteller, hanging out with everybody and talking about our adventures both present and past. The truth is, we had all lived and heard the same stories time and again, so we’d find different methods of retelling them to keep them interesting.”
In Haven, Flowers does much the same thing to keep his audience on the edge of their seats. By overlapping storylines, using different camera angles, playing with focus and speed, and making fascinating use of time shifts, he grabs viewers and doesn’t let go until the last frame of the film.
But action and suspense are not the only techniques Flowers uses to intrigue his audience. By adding layers of diversity and by infusing depth into his characters, he lets them tell the story.
“Growing up in a community so small, I met all kinds of people,” says Flowers. “I wasn’t aware of any racial tension, segregated class systems or gated communities. People left their doors open at night, the police never carried guns, and guys like my dad, who never went to college, were able to make a good life for themselves and their families.”
But the Caymans changed over the years, and Flowers watched the transition. It is the story of that rising and falling evolution that the young writer / director tells in Haven.
“I learned about the business undercurrent running through the island through my father. He was a local businessman, and through his eyes I met the world of entrepreneurs, policymakers and lawyers. Some were from the islands like him, and they lived through the transition years when Cayman changed from a sleepy little fishing town into a financial powerhouse.”
To be sure, the Cayman Islands with its unique tax-incentives and laissez-faire attitude became a Mecca for emerging businesses. It led to a new generation of working class and it enticed hotshots from the US and the UK to join local Caymanians in the banking/financial sector. With the influx of people, the island began to transform and lose much of its innocence.
“It was the perfect model of a melting pot — a society with so many different perspectives, from the ambitious high school graduate who would grow up to manage a bank, to the guy in the same class who would grow up to rob it. I know these people — they are my people, and they’ve got quite a story to tell.”
From Script to the Screen
If you consider the passion driving Frank E. Flowers to tell the story of the diverse characters in Haven, imagine the enthusiasm producer Robbie Brenner must have felt when she told Flowers the day after reading his script, “I’ll quit my job if you let me produce this movie.”
At the time, Brenner was a Senior Vice President at Miramax Films. She had kept in touch with Flowers after she saw his well-received short film Swallow, a powerful tale about a teenage drug mule in Miami who was smuggling cocaine to make money for college. “I saw Frank’s tremendous talent, and I told him to always try and create something you can be passionate about, something that you would make if it was the last movie you ever did. Haven has that passion.”
Indeed, Brenner did leave Miramax, and soon she was throwing her own passion into putting the movie together. With no cast attachments, no financing, and a first time independent writer/director/producer team, she had her work cut out for her. But once Bob Yari, who produced the Academy Award-winning Crash, showed interest – provided some well-known actor attachments could be procured – Brenner and Flowers had the fuel they needed. In only two short months, talent manager Aleen Keshishian fell in love with the material and became a champion of the film. She signed on as producer and Cassandra Kulukundis signed on as casting director, and they were off and running.
“Bill Paxton was one of the first to sign on. He read the script twice, really responded to it, and asked to meet with me,” remembers Flowers. “When we did, he walked into the room and said, ‘Listen, kid, I’m going to do your movie, so let’s talk about something else.”
Known for such blockbusters as Twister and now the HBO hit series Big Love, Paxton, who portrays corrupt businessman Carl Ridley, couldn’t believe the person who had written Haven was only 24 years old. “It’s a complicated piece where you come at something from different angles, but it’s really well done,” says Paxton. “It’s kind of a Shakespearean tragedy set against a contemporary situation.
That’s really complicated filmmaking, but it turned into this unbelievable movie, and Frank shot the hell out of it.” Orlando Bloom, star of such successful films as Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, was so taken by the script that he signed on to produce as well. He didn’t, however, sign on to portray Fritz, the role he was initially offered. “I loved the script, but the role I most responded to was the character of Shy, who at the time was written as a young Caymanian kid about 15 years old,” recalls Bloom, who was reluctant for Flowers to change the integrity of the script, but curious to see how he could do it. “I was amazed. In literally 48 hours, Frank came back with another script in which Shy had developed into a character I could play. I knew right then that if he could do something like that, I wanted to work with him.”
At the time only 27 years old himself, Bloom also made his first foray in the producing role. “It was exciting to start at the bottom of a film and work your way through it, to really roll up your sleeves and get involved,” says the young actor. “It really made me emotionally connected to the movie, so much so that it became a part of me.”
Bloom also liked the independent feel of the film. “When there isn’t the pressure of $150 million over your head, it’s suddenly all about making a really good movie and not about finance. In the end, I think it turned out to be a pretty intense little film, both visually and emotionally, and I know audiences are going to feel its impact.”
Certainly responsible for a great deal of the film’s emotional impact is actor Zoë Saldana, who starred opposite Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean, and now plays Andrea, the sultry island girl who has captured Shy’s heart.
“What attracted me to the story is that all of the characters in it are broken, and subject to the tragic consequences of their actions,” observes Saldana. “They all had flaws, and whether they were victims of circumstance or because of the choices they made, they were very real because of their imperfections.”
Flowers agrees with Saldana wholeheartedly. “That was exactly my intent – to develop characters that aren’t perfect because it’s the common flaws that bind all of us and make us human.”
Describing Flowers as “an amazing talent,” Saldana adds that while the characters are dark, they have a great deal of depth to them. “Frank wrote a great script,” says the actress. “It’s young and hip and tragic and beautiful all at once.”
If Shy and Andrea are the characters at the heart of the film, infusing it with romance, the character of Fritz, portrayed by Victor Rasuk, is at the core of the film’s action, and the thread that ties most everyone together.
A huge fan of Rasuk’s work in Raising Victor Vargas, Flowers met with the actor at Sundance. “We started chatting about Haven and about our mutual history of being from the West Indies,” recalls Flowers. “His unique energy really captures a lot of what the Caymans are about.”
After meeting with Flowers, Rasuk really wanted to portray Fritz, so he kept in constant contact to coordinate his busy schedule. “I was very eager to be part of something real and honest, and Haven was that,” remembers Rasuk, who turned down other offers of guaranteed work to fly to the islands to learn Caymanian culture and work on perfecting his accent. In fact, the actor actually took it upon himself to live with a family on the island and enroll incognito in the local high school.
“I had met the real Fritz in New York, months before and I was inspired to play him,” says Rasuk. “Even though we were from different countries, there was a common spirit in the way he looked at life. We had the same type of personality of hustling and making the best out of every situation.”
Producing and Casting Haven
The first “situation” we meet Fritz in is when he gets caught sleeping in a bungalow that isn’t his. It is Pippa, portrayed by Agnus Bruckner, who discovers the streetwise punk, and is immediately charmed by him. “Pippa is a real innocent, but also a bit of a wild child,” says Bruckner, known for her role in Murder By Numbers as well as her numerous appearances on the hit series 24. “I loved portraying her because she has a wide range of character traits and emotions. First she’s confused and upset by being uprooted from her home in Miami. Then she’s rebellious and vulnerable at the same time as she explores this exotic new world of the Caymans. It was a very diverse role, not to mention the fact I got to play it in paradise!”
One of the main characters tainting that paradise is gang leader Ritchie Ritch, portrayed by Raz Adotti, who audiences will remember from the popular film, Black Hawk Down. In Haven, however, Adotti’s character is anything but heroic. “I play one of the bad guys on the island, someone who a lot of people owe money, including Fritz,” explains Adotti. “You see, Ritchie thinks he’s a big tough guy, but really he’s a big fish in a little pond. His story ends up intersecting with Carl Ridley’s when Fritz spies Ridley with all those hundreds. There’s a lot of stories intertwining like that in this film, so you’re not just focused on only one person’s journey. It’s a really interesting ride, and from the moment I read the script I was captivated.”
With haunting original music by Heitor Pereira of Simply Red fame, and breathtaking camerawork by up-and-coming cinematographer Michael Bernard, Haven has an impressive list of actors rounding out over 30 speaking roles. For example, Stephen Dillane, who starred opposite Nicole Kidman in the Oscar®- winning movie The Hours, portrays the sleazy Mr. Allen, the money launderer who involves Ridley in his crooked deals. Anthony Mackie, who portrays Andrea’s hot-tempered brother Hammer, came to Haven after the distinct honor of being knocked out by Morgan Freeman in the Academy Award®-winning Million Dollar Baby. Even one of the smaller roles, such as Mr. Allen’s wife attracted an actor the caliber of Sarah Scott Thomas, who recently starred opposite Bruce Willis in Hostage; and audiences are certain to recognize Haven’s FBI agent Bobby Cannavale, who was Will’s boyfriend Vince in the hit series Will & Grace.
In addition to using traditional Hollywood talent, Flowers wanted to stay true to the spirit of the authentic island culture, and as such the producers set up an acting school to audition and train local hopefuls for different speaking and non-speaking roles in the film. Local actor Troy Sanford was discovered to portray a nightclub DJ. “We would work with the acting coach, doing exercises to sharpen our skills, and Frank and some of the actors would come in to encourage us,” recalls Sanford. “This one time I had a scene opposite Orlando, which was very nerve-wracking, but he was cool and helped me to relax and just go with it.”
Before the cameras started rolling, Rasuk and Saldana often rehearsed with the local talent. “They really wanted to learn a lot from us in the same way that we wanted to learn from them,” remembers Rasuk. “There was a pay-off on each side.”
Saldana agrees, commenting that the island felt almost “virginal” when they arrived. “Because many of the locals were immune to any kind of entertainment pattern, it was easy to attach yourself to their innocence and purity. It was a refreshing experience.”
After five six-day weeks, some sixteen-hour days, and four days shy of Christmas morning, the cast and crew of Haven watched a beautiful sunset on the east side of the island. The film would be the first feature shot entirely in the Cayman Islands, and one of only a handful of major feature films helmed by a Caribbean writer/director.
“I’ve learned that it’s really all about working with people with whom you want to work and finding cool stories you want to tell, and I am very proud to tell these people’s stories,” says Flowers. “I’ve also learned that making a movie is a very complicated process. A lot of elements have to come together logistically. Maybe that’s why it’s been said that every movie is a miracle.”
Cayman Islands Facts
• Discovered in 1503 by Columbus, the islands have been an official British territory since 1670.
• The Cayman Islands are three separate islands: Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.
• The entire population of the islands comprises 40,000 inhabitants from 193 countries.
• “Caymanian” is the proper term for locals. Fewer than half of the residents are actually from the island.
• The Islands have very low crime and strict anti-drug laws. Island police do not carry guns.
• Previously, the only other film shot on the islands was five days of shooting for The Firm.
• With no direct taxation, which means that neither salaries nor business profits pay taxable dues, the islands are a thriving offshore financial center. More than 40,000 companies were registered in the Cayman Islands as of 1998, including almost 600 banks and trust companies. Banking assets exceed $500 billion.
• Because the islands cater to affluent investors and financial institutions, Caymanians enjoy one of the highest outputs per capita and one of the highest standards of living in the world.
Haven (2006)
Directed by: Frank E. Flowers
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Bill Paxton, Stephen Dillane, Zoe Saldana, Razaaq Adoti, Agnes Bruckner, Victor Rasuk, Lee Ingleby, Anthony Mackie, Joy Bryant
Screenplay by: Frank E. Flowers
Production Design by: Damien Byrne
Costume Design by: Bobbie Read
Art Direction by: Jon Deprudhoe
Music by: Heitor Pereira
MPAA Rating: R for language, drug use, sexual content, violence.
Distributed by: Freestyle Releasing
Release Date: September 15, 2006
Visits: 47
