Ex-Arkansan delivers BET+ special
Nobody told Arkansas-raised filmmaker LazRael Lison he chose an impractical career, and as a result he has 12 directing credits, 15 acknowledgments as a producer and nine as a screenwriter.
Lison originally hails from Winchester (Drew County) and went to Dumas Junior High School. He later attended Little Rock’s Faith Christian High School and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville before moving to California.
Speaking from Los Angeles, he says, “I was about 10 years old. I started writing, and I was just a dreamer. … Our little town [Winchester] at that time had about 179 people. And I’m trying to write a screenplay. I was so young that … I hadn’t had … anybody … ruin that for me … [or had] somebody say you can’t do it at that age. I didn’t hear it enough to really kill that dream in that small town.”
His latest effort, “A Miracle Before Christmas,” is streaming on BET+. The feature stars LeToya Luckett as Mercedes Wright, a marriage counselor whose booming career is taking a toll on her relationship with her husband, Matthew (Romeo Miller).
To be fair, her advice is excellent. Other couples get closer after her sessions. Committing 20 minutes a day to each other can work, but Mercedes forgets that on the way home.
Tired of being the only parent attending the children’s pageants, Matthew leaves their house shortly before Christmas. Believing that he’s in the wrong, Mercedes tells a fellow bar patron (Keith David) that she wishes her husband could learn what life would be like without her. Before you can say “It’s a Wonderful Life,” she discovers that Matthew now thinks of her as a deranged intruder and that being materially successful can be crushingly lonely.
Lison is married to Tatiana Chekhova-Lison, and both are partners in his Summer House Pictures. They’ve been a filmmaking team for 12 years.
“I just think like we approach
it with no egos,” he explains when asked how the two of them have been able to avoid or get past the issues Mercedes and Matthew experience. “I think that we are rooting for each other. That’s my whole thing. I think that when you are in a relationship with someone, if you guys are each other’s fan and you know that you are, it ain’t your goal to compete with each other, but to better each other. And so if you approach it from that standpoint, all the egos go out the door.”
While Summer House Pictures offerings have reached wide audiences, Lison’s own observations inform Mercedes’ alternate reality. In her new world, she’s even wealthier and hopelessly miserable.
“I’ve been writing for so many years, and I just love it. I love everything about filmmaking. I love everything about storytelling. But if that’s all I had to live for and you didn’t have any value in anything else, then your life feels a little bit emptier because then you’re basing your whole existence on what a critic says,” Lison explains.
“You know, when I first got here (L.A.), I was always about trying to network with the people who had everything over here. But I always noticed — like a lot of people — that when I went to their house, they looked like they had it all. [But] they never wanted you to leave because they were so lonely.”
Mercedes also discovers that having a good home is nothing to take for granted on the holiday. She and Matthew have lucrative jobs. In the alternate reality, she discovers how others make their livings.
“Success is all relative,” Lison says.
Even though he’s living and working in Hollywood, Lison credits his upbringing in helping him stay focused when he isn’t writing or directing.
“That comes from growing up in a small town where you go to church on Sunday, where when you’re young, you’re taught the Bible and you are taught a sense of family and how it’s important,” he says.
“Even though I didn’t know until I was older that we were poor … because you had so much love, and you never missed a meal. That’s what’s so essential growing up in little towns and just in the South in general.”
That said, it’s hard to think of a state that produces more diverse types of filmmaking than Arkansas. Blaxploitation comic and producer Rudy Ray Moore hailed from Fort Smith. Writers Guild of America nominee Jeff Nichols (“Mud,” “Loving”) and “Test Pattern” director Shatara Michelle Ford also hail from the Land of Opportunity. Lison’s film is more family friendly, but like Nichols and Ford, he doesn’t shy away from challenging subject matter.
“Our outlooks are probably different,” Lison says. “My world is a very diverse world. Don’t get me wrong. I’m telling a story that deals with drug addiction, I will explore that.”
When asked why he wanted to make a holiday offering, Lison replied, “It’s always been a passion of mine, but it just so happened the timing became right with this one and with the network, and then the perfect story lined up. So, it just worked out, you know?”