Austin Film Festival Conversations: Bryant T. Griffin, Karam Salem, and Selena Leoni, the Creative Team Behind ‘Young King’

Still from Bryant T. Griffin’s YOUNG KING Courtesy of Young Kings Studio.

Young King was one of the most powerful films to be featured at the 31st Austin Film Festival this year. For it is that rare feature that takes an honest look at the struggles that veterans face returning home, and we had the distinct honor of sitting down with the creative team from this film at the AFF, Writer/Director Bryant T. Griff, Composer Karam Salem, and Producer Selena Leoni, to discuss how this feature came together.
 
John Betancourt: Bryant, what inspired you to write and direct this feature?
 
Bryant T. Griffin:  So, I just a little bit of background on me. I'm from visual effects. So again, I really again, I'm a nerd. I worked at Lucasfilm for about 12 years. So, I worked at Industrial Light and Magic. My first screen credit is Revenge of the Sith. Worked on the Potter films, Transformers, but I've always wanted to direct, and so I knew I had to make that transition. And UCLA was one of the schools that would allow you to make a feature for a thesis. And so, I knew going in I wanted to make a feature, but I didn't know about what. I knew I wanted it to center around African American life, middle class. Nobody is a drug dealer, and nobody is addicted to drugs, middle class, working families. And what happened is that, unfortunately, I have a friend who served in the second Iraq War. Another story that's not really told is African Americans who serve, you know, and serve this country for generations. And so, I wanted to cover that, and unfortunately, he came back from the second Iraq War, suffered from PTSD and was denied his benefits, and ended up something tragic happened, which is in the film. And the more research I started to do, the more I realized I didn't know about PTSD, mental health, because around 2008 is when it was becoming, you know, more mainstream to discuss it. Before the second Iraq war, we didn't really talk about PTSD, think about it. So, so around 2007, 2008 we started to talk about it, started to get soldiers help. And again, I felt that this was important story to tell African American community dealing with mental health issues, which is something that's also frowned upon. And so, it became this story about, you know, again, a slice of life, family of color, middle class, but also deals with important issues.
 
John Betancourt: Selena, as a producer, what inspired you want to get behind this film and get it out?
 
Selena Leoni: So, one of the thing that first attracted me is when Bryant was telling me the story about his friend, and then I'm not from the US originally, then you mentioned something about other than honorable discharge. So, I was like, what is that? So, I'm the type of person that when I don't know something, I'm drawn to story that I don't know anything about. I'm curious about it. And so, what is that, and why does that cause him to lose his benefit, or, like, not being able to get benefit? Yeah, so I was very curious about, like, why, like, there's a system that is supposed to help them, but it's not, just because the way they were discharged and the way they were discharged might be related to something that happened over there, too. And then the other thing that's really important to me is mental health, that it's not really talked about often in a lot of culture, like, where I'm from, like, I don't think anyone is, like, going to therapy. Like, even nowadays, like, when you talk about therapy, I'm like, I'm from Italy and China, both my culture, I feel like people just don't really talk about it, and they treat it as something like, “Oh, you're going to therapy. Is something wrong with you?” instead of, like, everyone kind of needs it, yeah. So that's really that. I think there's that even though it's a very specific story to the African American community in North Carolina, it's also very universal.
 
John Betancourt: Karam, what attracted you to want to be the composer of this.
 
Karam Salem: So, I believe I'm related to the film in so many ways, but I first got to know about it because I met Bryant in Los Angeles when we almost both started our careers, a while, 10 years ago. So, when Bryant wanted to make this film, I was on a very early time to get to know about it and absorb it. But what is even more interesting? So, I'm originally from Iraq. I was born and raised there for the first 18 years of my life, in Baghdad. Okay, so the things you saw on TV was like 15 minutes away from my home, and the event of the story, of the film, happened during the time when I was in my early years in high school. We didn't plan this too, yeah, like this was not planned. It's just the universe wanted us to meet in a way, and here we are today, so to a certain degree at fault, I was telling my own story too, through Diondre’s tragedy and where he came from, and also like what happens afterwards, when they come back? Because I feel like that's a part that no one talks about, you know, that's a part that no one -- it's almost like when the war starts and that's it, it stays there, you know, like there's what happens afterwards? What happens to the to the people who come back? What happens to the people who stayed there, you know? And how does life change? What happens to the people who left, like me and to be part of these kind of projects? So, like, that's kind of how it started. I don't know how to answer it, rather than just the universe wanted us to do. That happens so much.
 
John Betancourt: Now Bryant, this movie holds nothing back in exploring PTSD, and I a various curious how did you assemble such detail regarding that?
 
Bryant T. Griffin: Basically, again when I remember where I was, when I heard the news of what happened in the story, and I had grown up with this individual, went to church with him, and this was something that I knew him before, and when he came back from service, and he was a completely different person. And again, in hearing what happened, I started to research. And what happened is that his family gave me access to his medical records and then later on his court documents. And so, I was able to, there's a whole sequel to this. But again, I focused on what, you know, the personal story, the intimate story that I could tell with the resources that we had. And so, I focused on family, but there's a whole story of what happened afterwards, and I had access to those court documents, and as I mentioned, his medical records. And so, the stuff was there, the information was there, and it just led me down this, this rabbit hole of, wait a second, this stuff is real. And one of the things that happened is that as I completed my first script, the script was a finalist for the Sloan award.
 
And the Sloan award is a science-based award. And as you apply for these awards and fundings, they pair you with a specialist in the field. And so, they actually paired me with someone who studies neurochemistry, and PTSD. And so, when I met with the scientist, he basically said, neurochemistry is a real thing, and your emotions are chemically -- they can be chemically controlled. And what he the way he explained PTSD, is that basically there's something that fires in your brain, and when you're at in a situation that causes fight or flight, causes adrenaline, and it doesn't shut off for soldiers, because they're in these tense situations for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for months at a time. And what happens is that the chemicals are rewiring your brain and so that you have this over stimulated, you know, they're over stimulated, and you have this, this hyper response to normal things. And so when I started to see that there's actual science behind them, like, “Oh, it's not just guys that come back and go to the bottle as a way to kind of cope with things, it's like, there's science behind it.’ And so, that's what, again, every layer I pull peel back, there was more there to dig into. And again, the family being, you know, really open and honest, and trusting me to tell this story and providing me with this information is that's how I was able to get that detail.
 
John Betancourt: So, this is a question for both Bryant and Selena. Because… there is a powerful sense of realism here, almost no fourth wall exists in this film, and I’m curious what motivated the decision to create a film that blurs the line? And as a producer Selena, how you supported that and nurtured it.
 
Bryant T. Griffin: So, this goes back to my geek, inner geek, because you can relate, because we were raised at a time when fantasy was total fantasy, and what's happened through the advent of the technology, we've seen things that we probably didn't think we were gonna see, like an Avengers film, a lot of stuff. We didn't think -- that's why I fell in love with Alex Ross, for example, because his paintings were photo real. And I was like, “Okay, this is the closest we're gonna get to a realistic superhero whether it's Kingdom Come, whether it's like, you know, his X-Men book.” But the thing is, I want to, eventually, in my career, I want to take the fantastical and ground it like, really make it almost like, you think it's like a, you know, the way Gareth Edwards does for monsters, for example, Godzilla. He makes it really grounded. And so, I like that. And at the same time, you know, Chloe Zhao, who did Nomadland?
 
I was really inspired by, you know, bringing in real elements like vérité. Again. There's a garage scene that is almost totally unscripted. There's some of it that is scripted, but there's some of it that's totally unscripted. And for me, that vérité, the grounded nature of it, was super important, I think, and it lends to the authenticity. And the other thing is that, be honest, it was a micro budget film, and I wasn't going to try to create something polished when I knew I didn't have the resources to execute that. So, I embraced the limitations of what we had. It's like we have no budget. I'm not going to try to make it look fancy. You know, this is a raw film. Let's, let's embrace that all the way through. And that's something that I spoke with the cinematographer about, Vito Campaner, who was really on board with it, Karam as well.
 
Selena Leoni: Like, just to chime in, I think it's really important, because part of the film is we are a fly on the wall. So, the way that Vito and Bryant, they decided to shoot it, it's like we are literally with him, because we don't --- literally she, she did all the like, we didn't have like, a camera operator. She was the one holding the camera. I had picture of her, like, holding, like, this giant camera, like handheld. And, like, I remember there was a scene where he was in the bathroom. Vito was literally, like, this close to him. So, like, the camera is literally like him in a way, that's where, like, kind of like, you say, blur the line. But also, there's another line where we don't really, we're… as a film, we're not saying who is right and wrong, we're just telling the story which is kind of real life. There's no, really, like, black and white. Everything is more like gray and blurred together. It's really hard to say, like, who's wrong and who is right? Because it's a lot of things are leading up to this.
 
John Betancourt: So. There is obviously, a big moment in this movie. One that made me audibly gasp and definitely went places that stories like this normally don’t go. But it’s important and I’m curious what went into the decision to take this story into such difficult and powerful territory.
 
Bryant T. Griffin: I'm glad you're discussing that and thank you for being delicate about how you're discussing it. To me, I think that was the entire reason to tell it, because I do think a lot of times, we don't do anyone a service when we sugar coat things, and I think a lot of times we do that, and I think that that may hurt what the film can do, because it's not a feel-good film. It is a film about love, and it's not a feel-good film. But I think that that, to be honest, that was the reason why I wanted to tell the story is that in order to honor the person which this happened to, and it's a cautionary tale, and I think sometimes you do need to shock people to pay attention. And we tried to do it in a tasteful way. We didn't want to exploit it. It's like, “Hey, this is an important issue. We're not trying to exploit it,” which is why it plays out the way it does. You know, it's almost for shock. You know, you could imagine a million different ways to shoot it, to drag out the tension, or whatever. But again, it's to kind of, again, to shock people. And this is a cautionary tale. Again, our conflicts, our wars overseas, don't end when the soldiers get on a plane and come back home. They bring that stuff with us. They're trained to do a certain thing and nothing else, and it's hard to deprogram them. And there are a lot of them. They're in all these communities, and they put themselves on the line. And I think the least we can do is to honor our part of the commitment and take care of them when they get back, because it affects everyone when we don't anything bad.
 
Selena Leoni: Yeah. I mean, I, yeah. I think, like, what Bryant said, like, basically, Sign me up. But like, yeah. Like, I completely agree. Like, when they come back, it's not just them, it's everyone around them that's affected. Like, in this story, it's really sad. But like, even in like, people who might not have done something this dramatic, there's always like, stuff that they bring back that other people in their family can feel, or they might become a different person. That's why we need to take care of them, because we're also taking care of ourselves if we take care of them.
 
John Betancourt: Now this is a movie that has so much messaging and so many ideas and takeaways, which I appreciate so much. But I am curious as to what you hope audiences will take away from this film.
 
Bryant T. Griffin: What's been incredible about the response so far is that people are reminding me of what I actually initially wanted to take away from everything. It's because… I did write it a long time ago, and sometimes you look at these things so many times you forget, like, what you plant, the seeds that you planted early on. So, so a lot of it is to take care of our veterans, but a lot of it is, you know, it is about the love of a family who's trying to get help for their son. The other thing is, is the systemic, the system problems. My whole thing in this is that technically, when you look at it, everyone did what they were supposed to do, and this was the outcome, yeah, is that he signed up to serve his country, something happened to where he was discharged other than honorable. When he's denied benefits at this point in time in history, he's not supposed to get benefits because he's discharged other than honorable. And so technically, people are doing their jobs.
 
They're doing what they're supposed to do, and this was the outcome of that. And so, for me, it's about, let's look at our systems and make sure that let's, let's adjust what we're doing. Let's adjust, you know, these discharges, you know, it's like, just because something is the way it's supposed to be doesn't mean that something is right again, like to me, again, these veterans, they do things that I don't, I wouldn't do, to be completely honest. And I do think that we enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy because they put themselves on the line. And I think the least we can do is give them health care. And so again, my thing is this discharge during the time was pushed on soldiers because they wanted to save money, basically, is what it comes down to, and this is the cost of that choice. And so, let's take a look at our systems that create these situations.
 
Selena Leoni: Yeah, the other thing, it's also like that I was saying that I didn't know anything about this. So, I think I want people to like, embrace the thing that they don't know. Because I think that's the thing. I come from a multicultural background. Karam is also not originally from the US. A lot of time, people make assumption based on what they think. And I think, like, I always say that, like, it's more important to learn if you don't know something, you learn about it, instead of, like, run away from it, which is kind of this film. Like, I think, like, when we played the film, the audience would, like, never heard of it. They didn't know about it, and they learned something for it. That's kind of what I want people to take away as well, like, even if they don't know anything about this before learning about it, and not like, running away from it, because if you run away, it's still there, the issue.
 
Karam Salem: I feel for me, the important part of it that I would like the audience to receive is the true existence of such a thing, that happened once in the film, but also it happened all the time that we don't even know about. It's just for me, because I looked through so many wars, and I'm not, I don't think I'm that all to say, like, I survived three wars, right? But it's just like, you don't know what happens after, when everybody goes home. So, if we can reach that, the ending is not when everybody is home, because that is the beginning of so many other things. And I feel if we could reach that to the audience, that this happens, and it could be very close to us, and it's true, basically more of the awareness of the issue. You know, it's not just like four letters together and that's it. There's so much goes into it. Especially, I think that's especially the second Iraq war, both Iraq wars, really, we don't talk about those things so and then even, even beyond that, for other wars too.
 
John Betancourt: What does it mean to all of you now to have this on screens at this festival and at others and be seen by audiences.
 
Bryant T. Griffin: I'm thrilled. I'm nervous. Uh, my anxiety is through the roof right now. I'm extremely grateful to Austin Film Festival, yourself, and other outlets that are sitting here with us, because it is a labor of love. I believe in the work and the people that we were fortunate enough to have on the project. And so, I’m excited that people will, get to see Vincent (Washington) act and see Tarra Riggs, act and see the cinematography of Vito, and listen to the music of Karam. So, I'm thrilled. I'm eager for the discussions. You know. I'm just hoping people come out, come out, sit and enjoy and let the conversations begin. Yeah, super excited.
 
Karam Salem: I think is, is the experience, just to go through it, you know, for me, was very personal, and also, like, because I was involved in it so early on, there's a lot of things also didn't make it in the film, but probably made it in the score, you know, because it was, I was just like, absorbing all the stories. You know, we talked so much about so many things. You know, yeah, I'm truly grateful for the experience to be part of it, and I'm so excited for Sunday to experience this with people, he hasn't watched it with other people that didn't actually work on the film. So, I'm so excited to see the reactions. I'm probably going to be looking at people more than the movie, that's okay, and I want to sit in the back, in the middle of everybody.
 
Selena Leoni: Yeah, that's literally, like I was going to say when you ask that question, like my favorite thing is to, like, see the reaction, because I've seen it with, I think, like, two, two audiences. One is, like, an early cut, and then, like, when we were at the ABFF Festival, and, yeah, and then, like, the other thing that I just wanted to add on, it's not related to this question, but Karam mentioned that there was something that, there's stuff that didn't make it into the film. And then early on, you asked about, like, the details that you can see through the movie. And then Bryant mentioned, like, all the research that he did, also the script was originally like, different, talks about different stuff as well, even those, those things, I think that's part of the reason why you can feel the detail. Because even though the thing was not included in the movie. The research was there, yeah, so it was shown in the movie. So, I yeah, I was really surprised and shocked to see the reaction that people had. I remember, like, the first time we did the screening after we went up for the Q and A and I was like, taking picture of the audience, and they were like… teah. They were like, covering their face. You know, they were, like, very emotional.
 
John Betancourt: We do need to talk about the score as well, because Karam, it’s beautiful and powerful, and I’m curious how you nailed it so perfectly.
 
Karam Salem: I knew that we have to approach it from a very personal, intimate way. But I also, from the very beginning, I did want it to sound very big and cinematic. So that was the challenge from the very, very beginning. Is like, how can I make things sounds larger than life, like just with one instrument, you know? And then that's where we started, you know. And we kept experimenting, experimenting, and I feel the first theme I wrote was Diondre’s theme, and it happened over a Zoom, like, literally over a Zoom. It was just so random. Because, like, we were just talking, and I was like, Bryant, let me try something. And I played like three, four chords, and then I opened another track, and I played the cello line, and I tried so hard to do better than what I did over Zoom, it just never worked. And we kept going back to that, that sound that we created in that very moment. I don't know what happened? He probably said something, and it triggered something in me, and that what came out. And we stuck in that, and we tried to avoid it, but we always came back to it. And that's, that was the beginning of how it all started. And then we wanted to have, we wanted to have Fatima’s thme, to be also part of Diondre’s theme, so we can play them together. So that was also another challenge, but yet also we want to minimize. So, it was always, I feel like the same thing is like, how, how were you able to choose the plots that you wanted to tell in the stories? It's the same thing that we had to go through musically too, like, what is too much and what is too little? And that fine line was we were always trying to balance and check we check each other. Is it too much? Is it too little? Where are we in that, you know, orchestration wise, you know. And we always settle down on… it's we start bigger, and then we take things away or we start too simple, and we need something more to add, you know. And that's kind of was the entire process.
 
And again, I was so lucky because I was so early on into it. And then Bryant came to my studio for the entire month. We were just there. He came multiple times. He gives me notes and things and feedback. He leaves “I love” in these notes, and then he comes back, and then we --- that's kind of how the process was. So, it was a very intimate, personal experience, and we did want to approach it from Diondre’s, like mental space, like I wanted the music to sound from -- coming from his within his body, rather than outside of him. I think we… I'm proud of it. I think we achieved it. It took some time, but it's okay. Experience. It worked. I know there's a lot that.
 
Also, Bryant doesn't, doesn't, doesn't want to take the credit for it. But on that big thing that we talked that we didn't say, I remember I played him the first time to watch that scene. And I remember Bryant walking. I heard his steps coming. He was like, “Can you mute this? Can you mute that? Can we leave this one? Can we leave that one?” And then he sat back, and then I went back, and we played that scene again. And something happened in that very, very moment that I tell him, you scored that cue. He tells him, you know, I scored this cue, and it goes back, but like his, he always knew what that scene needed, and we wanted to do it for Fatima, for her character, and we wanted to honor her. And I remember when we were dubling the score to everything else, like, and we got to that moment, and I remember like we asked the dub mixer to, like we want the sound to feel like everybody in the theater is being hugged in that moment, to be part of it. And he like…  he did it like magic. So that's the moment. I can't wait to hear.
 
John Betancourt: The last question I have for everyone today, what do you think we need to do in our communities to properly support our veterans when they come home.
 
Bryant T. Griffin: So good question, and it's always an uphill battle. The funny thing is, is that there have been changes that have been occurring within policies. I think as recent as 2018 there's like a new policy to kind of have a look at the other than honorable discharges. But at the same time, the veterans are still having a difficult time, like in my in my mind space, right, as soon as you sign the papers, health care, rest of your life, period. Because I am a universal healthcare kind of guy again, regardless, our veterans should get it. I think you know that that would be the change. The other thing too is, especially within the African American community, to try to remove the stigma attached to mental health issues. As Selena mentioned, like even now, when I talk to some members of my family and say, “Hey, you know, I think I need to talk to the therapist, or I have some family members that regularly go to therapists,” but if I talk about it, you know, you do see the smiles and you see the laughter and you like and it's different depending on where you are, you know, like, yeah, big city center, is this a little bit more acceptable than the other spaces and so again, anything that we can do to kind of help, you know, people to accept that it's okay to talk about trauma and to deal with trauma, and to try to get help for trauma and remove that stigma, I think that's something that I would love people to kind of take away and try to change.
 
Karam Salem: Talk about your feelings, yeah, it's okay, yeah. I think because we come from different cultures, it's not okay, you know, it's like. So that opened that sort of conversation, like, it's okay to share your feelings, to your father, to your mother, to your brother, to your wife, you know, to your children, to your children too. And I think that's what I felt, that's what it is for me, is just to be comfortable to talk about your feelings, you know, because it could lead to things that -- it could save lives too, you know, I know, just like, yeah, that's the basic line.
 
Selena Leoni: Right, yeah, like that. And also like, yeah, I think, like, filmmakers are so, like, especially writers, directors, because they are the person that are sometimes telling their own personal story, not to the therapy, but to the whole war, and I personally cannot do that, but it's important for people who don't want to tell their story to the whole world to know that it's okay to talk to someone about it. So that's, like, really important. And the other thing, like, going back to what I was saying before, to like, I think, to learn about stuff instead of, like, running away. Because sometimes I think everyone does that when they just to a certain degree where there's something difficult, you're afraid to, like, go learn about it, or like, solve it. You just try to hide it and hope it will go away. But that doesn't really happen. So sometimes you really just have to learn it and like challenge it and go through it.
 
Karam Salem: To relate. I feel to relate, because, like, if you're not involved, if you don't come from families who have soldiers and stuff like that, like the idea of relate to this, because we're not far away from it. We always think we're far away from it. And I think because of that, we don't put ourself to understand, you know, because it's not we're far away from it, right? So that's, that's the thing is just to be involved and relate to what is happening and be open to understand and learn.
 
Bryant T. Griffin: Before we go, I just want to say, So, super grateful for Karam and Selena and then also my cinematographer, Vito, because we were gonna shoot before the pandemic. The pandemic happened, and that actually gave us time to go through the script, like almost like a full year. So, we knew we had options upon options, and then also, the work is beautiful. And then also, my lead actor, Vincent Washington. He's actually a veteran. He served in the Afghanistan war. And what he brought to the production in terms of professionalism, and as sure, you see in his performance is just incredible. And of course, the rest of the cast, Tarra Riggs, is just amazing. Kirby (Griffin), who plays Fatima, Vaughn (Wilkinson), as Isaiah. So just again, super grateful, because it really is a labor of love. It's total micro budget. You know, everyone did it for the love. And these guys have hung around like, again, for Karam, it’s almost nine years, but, yeah, everyone's given everything to this. And so, it's a real labor of love.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity