VENTURA COUNTY STAR ARTICLE
'In Your Eyes' goes wider

By staff reports
February 16, 2006

Oxnard writer and director Trae Briers' has signed his first feature film, "In Your Eyes," to a national/international distribution deal with Maverick Entertainment Group, the distributor confirmed this week.

The film, shot entirely in Ventura County, debuted two years ago during a special screening at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Briers said he signed the distribution deal on Jan. 20. Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based Maverick Entertainment is a premiere distributor of independent films.

In the film, Yusef, played by Caleeb Pinkett (the younger brother of film star Jada Pinkett), is a young African-American man in love with CeCe (Angie Ruiz), a beautiful Hispanic woman with dreams of going to fashion school. Both characters are, for the most part, unaware of the cultural and racial fires their love is igniting around them.

Most of that fire comes from Sergio (Michael Delorenzo), CeCe's father, who eventually forbids his daughter to see Yusef because he is black. This decision wounds Yusef even more profoundly because he views Sergio as a father figure.

Briers said he sees the film as a love story, yes, but, "first and foremost a tragedy."

— On the Net: http://www.maverickentertainment.cc.

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