My Brother Jack

Stage director Anthony Caldarella made his film directorial debut with this drama demonstrating the horror of heroin-addiction impacting on an Italian-American family. During the early '50s, the Casale clan leaves Sicily, arriving at NYC's Lower East Side. It's a time when young Joey Casale (Freddy Capra) is impressed by the magic tricks of older brother Jack (Marco Leonardi). By 1963, however, Jack is deep into drugs, and his heroin habit causes grief for his mother Rose (Karen Colonna Kondazian) and his three straight-arrow brothers: Joey is an industrious student, Vincent (Michael Cavalieri) is a blues musician, while Sal (Peter Alla) manages a successful local trattoria. All make efforts to steer Jack in the right direction, but Jack's self-destructive downward descent seems unstoppable. Shown at the 1997 Hamptons Film Festival.