Cleveland Independent Film “Swing Lowe Sweet Chariote,” to Premiere on June 24th

[Press release from HWIC Filmworks.]

Digiplex Solon Cinema 16 will be rolling-out the red carpet for newly-inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, Public Enemy, for the World Premiere of Cleveland independent film “Swing Lowe Sweet Chariote,” an emotionally charged urban drama that is based on a novel by Cleveland author, Stella Hall.

HWIC Filmworks, a Cleveland-based Indie Movie Production Company owned by cousins John Delserone and David C. Snyder, announced that five theaters will play the 96-minute feature film simultaneously starting at 7:00pm on June 24th but red carpet festivities will begin at 6:30pm.

Director and editor, David C. Snyder, has directed all of Public Enemy’s music videos since 2005 and has a close working relationship with the group. Because of that relationship they managed to get a theme song for the movie and have lead man, Chuck D, appear in the film.

Swing Lowe Sweet Chariote (premieres June 24th at Digiplex Solon Cinema 16)

[SWING LOWE SWEET CHARIOTE premieres Monday June 24 th at 7:00 pm at Digiplex Solon Cinema 16. Red carpet festivities begin at 6:30 pm.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Chariote (Phillia Thomas) is a smart young black girl living on Cleveland's East Side. She's managed to overcome her rough early years with a good-for-nothing mom (Melissa Thorne) thanks to the love and care of her grandmother (Tammi Swails). Now she and her two best friends Lily (Chanel Lewis) and Shannon (Carla Macon) are about to graduate high school, with Chariote setting her sights on a law degree. But if Chariote gives in to the romantic advances of neighborhood drug dealer Ace (Hakeem Sharif), she may wind up needing a lawyer herself long before she has a chance to become one. Or maybe even worse.

Starting out not unlike a gender switched BOYZ IN THE HOOD set in Cleveland, at about the thirty minute mark SWING LOWE SWEET CHARIOTE begins to morph into something more along the lines of a gender switched BLACK CAESAR. Which actually isn't a bad idea for an urban crime drama, really. But Chariote feels like such a believable character, and the movie is so filled with authentic detail, that it in a way it's harder to buy when the movie shifts gears into urban action territory than if the film had started off with a more generic opening. Both Thomas and Sharif do good work in the lead roles, but they still can't sell us on the idea that Chariote would throw away a bright future for a guy she never seems to really like. It's actually more believable, given her smarts, when she starts to become the power behind the throne in Ace's drug business.