FILMMAKER MAGAZINE | Fall 1998: PRODUCTION UPDATE

PRODUCTION UPDATE

Twenty-year-old Val Lik makes his longform directing debut with the South Bronx-set street drama Boricua’s Bond, a no-holds-barred story of Hispanic kids (boricuas) balanced on a tightrope between the violence of the streets and the world of art. The Russian-born Lik also stars as one of Bond’s two leads, a white teen recently arrived in the Bronx who finds himself the target of a local gang. Salsa star Frankie Negron plays his neighbor and saviour, a talented young artist waiting for the scholarship that will take him out of the hood. The supporting cast is comprised of rap stars in their acting debuts and includes Naughty By Nature’s Treach, Big Punisher, Wu-Tang Clan’s Killah Priest, and Stickyfingaz from Onyx, along with rising stars Mistah Cheeks (The Lost Boyz) and the Beatnutts’ Psycho Les. Hot New York urban d.j. Tony Touch plays an art dealer, and Polo model Tyson Beckford makes his theatrical debut.

Lik grew up in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay and made his first short, There’s No Hope, at 16. That helped win him a scholarship to Pace University, where he edited the school paper while continuing to bang out scripts. By 18 he’d met Bad Boy Entertainment founder Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and rapper Notorious B.I.G ("Biggie Smalls") and wrote a screenplay, Final Conflict, for Smalls to star in. Smalls put up the cash for Conflict, and it was weeks away from principal photography when he was killed last March.

Lik set out to make Bond guerrilla-style with cinematographer Brendan Flynt, and he raised cash and attracted talent through sheer force of will. By late April he had the film – 75,000 feet worth – in the can but no editor and was unsure how to proceed. That’s when he met Greg Scheinman, a commercial and music video producer and ex-Miramaxer, who produced his first feature, The Two Ninas, last year. Scheinman liked the footage and had the Wall Street connections to raise Bond’s post financing. But first he needed to assess whether Lik’s "shoot now, sign the release later" style would make for a releasable film.

"I couldn’t in good conscience go to investors until I determined that we had the contracts to create a deliverable movie," he says. After signing off on (or reconstructing) the film’s paperwork, his next step was to hire Six Ways to Sunday editor Doug Abel to cut Bond with Lik. At press time the filmmakers were opening negotiations for what could be a through-the-roof soundtrack; Scheinman says the rapper-actors will all provide unreleased or new songs. A rough cut should be done in late September; all rights are available.

Cast: Frankie Negron, Val Lik, Treach (Naughty by Nature), Stickyfingaz (Onyx), Big Punisher, Tyson Beckford, Mistah Cheeks (The Lost Boyz), Tony Touch, Killah Priest (Wu-Tang Clan), Psycho Les (The Beatnutts). Crew: Producer, Greg Scheinman; Co-Producer, Robyn Karp; UPM, Stephen Schmidt; Screenwriter/Director, Val Lik; Cinematographer, Brendan Flynt; Editor, Doug Abel. Contact: Greg Scheinman, Boricua’s Bond LLC, 340 East 34th Street, New York, NY 10016. Tel: (212) 532-8755, Fax: (212) 532-7968.