Rezza Brothers, Anchor Niagara hosting actor Jennifer Esposito for NOTL film premiere

It will be a dream come true for Niagara-on-the-Lake brothers Adrian and Lucas Rezza when actor Jennifer Esposito joins them for the Canadian premiere of her film Fresh Kills on Sunday, August 18 at Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate.

The hip-hop artists and producers known as 80 Empire have six original songs on the soundtrack to Esposito’s directorial debut about two young New York City women struggling with the demands placed on them by their organized crime boss father. 

Presented in partnership with Anchor Niagara, the Sunday evening event will raise funds for Gillian’s Place, a non-profit organization that provides safe refuge and non-residential programs that enable women, gender- and sexually diverse folks and their children to break the cycle of violence.

Along with a fresh-air screening of the film, Esposito and co-producer Leslie Ann Owen will join the Rezza brothers on the amphitheatre stage for a Q-&-A session about the making of the movie and how the brothers created the music that helps drive the story.

Lucas explains that the connection with Esposito came about one day when his brother saw that she was following one of their friends on Instagram.

“It was Gino Cafarelli, another incredible actor,” says Lucas. “Adrian noticed that her email address linked to her Instagram account was her personal email. We’ve always loved her work, so Adrian sent her an email message and she replied.”

An online dialogue went back and forth between the American actress and the Canadian musicians for a few months. Later, when the Rezzas were in New York City in 2022 to shoot a music video, they arranged to have lunch with her. A lunch that lasted more than four hours long. 

“We just connected,” adds Lucas. “When Jenn was talking about the film and her continual uphill battle to get it made, we offered to do some music for her because we really believed in the project. She’s the opposite of Hollywood, a real salt of the earth independent filmmaker.”  

Esposito (The Boys, Blue Bloods, Summer of Sam) arranged for Adrian and Lucas to see the film without music. They hunkered down in Lucas’ basement studio and came up with the six songs used in Fresh Kills. 

“Besides being freaking amazing humans and incredibly gifted artists,” says Esposito in a text, “they are fast. I believe I called them at 8:00 p.m. one night about a track I needed and by 12:00 a.m. they sent me something.”

Though 80 Empire are hip-hop artists, Adrian stresses that Fresh Kills is not a hip-hop film. It is set in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and they created music that would fit into that era.

In their music videos 80 Empire come across with the swagger one would expect from hip-hop artists. But in NOTL, they’re just family men, helping coach their kids’ soccer teams. The importance they place on their families bears out on one Fresh Kills song, All Say, which features Adrian’s daughters Simone and Julia and Lucas’ daughter Vanessa on vocals. 

 And don’t be put off by the film’s  macabre-sounding title, which comes from the name of an infamous Staten Island garbage dump, the world’s largest until it was closed in 2001. The landfill is a metaphor for the ‘garbage’ the main characters Connie (Odessa A’zion) and Rose (Emily Bader) face in dealing with how their lives are affected by their father’s (Domenick Lombardozzi) decisions. Esposito plays their oft-struggling mother.

“It’s about how in that world women are just supposed to take it,” says Adrian, “how women don’t have a voice, or they can’t express their voice because of this patriarchal system that is in place. And the men justify their avarice and ego as ‘doing it for the family’ when they are really not.”

Fresh Kills was released in the US in October 2023 but is just now making it into a few select theatres in Canada. The Rezzas travelled the film festival circuit - Tribeca, The Hamptons, and Cinequest in San Jose - but all along they hoped to invite their new friend and artistic collaborator to NOTL for a screening of the film. 

When Esposito and Owen agreed to visit NOTL with a copy of the film, the Rezzas immediately turned to Maria Mavridis to draw upon her expertise in hosting events for charities through Anchor Niagara.

“If you learn the story about how Jennifer had to persevere to get this film made, and if you watch the film, you’ll understand why we chose Gillian’s Place,” says Mavridis. “It shines a light on the treatment of women, and I’ve always been about empowering women. Gillian’s Place is an amazing organization.”

The Rezzas put all the local arrangements in Mavridis’ hands. She quickly contacted Jackson-Triggs Estate manager Craig Swanson who was happy to become a partner for the premiere.

“Maria has her roots in NOTL,” says Adrian. “We wanted to team up with someone on the same wavelength as us. We are great at what we do music-wise, but Maria has facilitated and executed things on a bigger scale. And I think she and Jenn are on a parallel journey.”

Tickets for the August 18 Canadian premiere of Fresh Kills are available through the Anchor Niagara website, where an early-bird price of $43.93 is currently active. General admission will be $60 closer to the show date, and a VIP meet-and-greet with Esposito is available for $80.

The brothers hope the Fresh Kills premiere is just the start of a series of collaborations with Esposito, and hint that they have invited her into Lucas’ studio to lay down a few vocals for some demo tracks. 

But right now they are buzzing with excitement about the chance to screen the film to a local crowd for a good cause on August 18.

“This is such a great film, really authentic and believable,” says Adrian. “Jenn is an exceptional writer and director. We are truly honoured to be a part of it.”