Stepping up as co-host for the 2003 Griot awards will be B.C. lawyer Lesra Martin. Martin, who doubles as a motivational speaker, was instrumental in helping to overturn Rubin "Hurricane" Carter’s 1976 murder conviction in 1985. He’s also the subject of a 45-minute NFB documentary, The Journey of Lesra Martin.

"I think the producer did a fabulous job," he exclaims with satisfaction from his Kamloops home. "He hunted me down, I kept telling him, no, I wasn’t going to let them do it for a long time, you know, and he diligently would phone every few weeks to change my mind. And then he found this great director from Calgary, Cheryl Foggo, and she’s a great lady, and she said ‘hey, I want to do a real piece, I want to pick apart your life, like how did you get here.’ I mean, we’re dealing with some tough issues in that film, and she’s able to be sensitive and juggle them."

The film follows Martin from the streets of New York, where he and his family struggled against gang violence, illiteracy and drugs, to a new start in Toronto. It’s a poignant piece of work that in many ways underlines the fact that the problems here in Canada are not so different from those in American ghettos. It is as much a social critique as it is a tale of personal redemption.

"We didn’t see the success it would have; you think hey, we’ll make this little 45-minute piece but who wants to see it? Who wants to hear about literacy and poverty and inner-city problems, and yet we’ve been touring literally non-stop across the country since it debuted last September and it’s just been great."

The Journey of Lesra Martin has made the rounds of the film festival circuit, and now has made inroads in America, where it’s slotted to play Los Angeles, at the Hollywood Black Film Festival. Martin is pleased that the film has made its way back to his birthplace (it’s also scheduled to play New York), especially given the way American media has sensationalized the topic.

"It’s nice to see a film that isn’t exploitative, but still showing it raw and real," he affirms. "Issues like poverty and illiteracy and unequal access to opportunity and the problem with AIDS in the inner city. Maybe it is possible to bring those issues to the forefront without being exploitative, and it was done stupendously in this film."

For Martin, who displays a penetrating knowledge of our own provincial governments’ apparent contempt for education, the film "just underlines exactly what I’m saying," he laughs. "We need to make education a priority; not everybody sees it this way, but I know, given my own experience, that were I not provided with decent opportunities, a decent chance to read and write, even at the late age of fifteen, then I wouldn’t be where I am today."