Photo Credit: Emmanuel J Davis of B.E.D. Productions
Hailing from the Motor City, Treavion Davenport is a Celebrity Publicist, Author, and Branding Guru. She launched and re-sparked the careers of popular music talents including multi-platinum neo-soul singer Chrisette Michele, rappers Kash Doll, Gucci Mane, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta’s Rasheeda, and Grammy-nominated Charli Baltimore. She has now taken her talents to direct and produce a compelling documentary, Living for the Sacrifice: A Hood Hero’s Guide to Success, which chronicles Brian Maurice Brown’s radical rise as the mastermind of a narcotics empire on the same Motor City streets that took the lives of both of his parents.
Your documentary is a compelling extension of your biopic book “Living for the Sacrifice. Tell us about Brian Maurice Brown.
Brian Maurice Brown is one of the most intuitive and interesting men of our time. He’s a former drug kingpin-turned Grammy-nominated music exec and the complex subject of this American Gangsta meets The Secret-style masterpiece. He was bred on the same Detroit streets that took the lives of his parents while he languished in the shadows during a 5-year stint as a fugitive profiled on America s Most Wanted as a suspect of a vicious murder and narcotics empire that extended across the country and outside U.S. borders. After serving nearly 10 years in the Federal Correction System, he has risen to success in the entertainment industry, yet his proudest accomplishment is being a loving father to his children, loyal husband to multiple wives, and protector, provider, and stabilizer of many. His mere existence despite the traumatic and astonishing lives he’s lived is unfathomable.
You are known as “The Storyteller.” Why was this story important for you to take to the Big Screen?
I’ve known Brian Maurice Brown since I was 18 years old. Even then he was an intriguing, powerful and intoxicating character. He’s only a couple of years older than me, but he seemed so much older, wiser, and more worldly – then he was actually. He was highly active in the drug game, but I never knew it. He never led with any stereotypical thug persona or flaunted his lifestyle. Instead, he went through great lengths to take care of his family, his friends – including me, his neighborhood, his basketball teammates, and even strangers. He was known as the “Robin Hood from the hood”. When charged with writing his story, self-help book Living for the Sacrifice: A Hood Hero’s Guide to Success, and subsequently turning it into a movie, it was extremely important to me that we present his life and purpose so that audiences can see perhaps a glimpse of what I see in Brian, that he’s so much more than a street hustler and a womanizer, but rather a special man who longed for love and acceptance from the time he was a little boy. This was a story I felt compelled to tell.
What was your vision starting out and how did it come to fruition?
The vision was simple – tell his story. Brian was the best subject because with him there are no pretense, no rules, no criteria, no deadlines and no limits. My only requirement in taking on the project to write his book was that he made available to me his closest friends and family to interview. These compelling interviews for the book – made me realize that the world needed to see this and meet this man live and direct, that’s how the movie came to be.
As a director, what was important to you?
Going beyond telling Brian’s compelling story but bringing to the screen a deeper understanding of his outline of engagement and purpose of “living for the sacrifice” and how by practicing it he’s managed to stay alive and thrive.
You interviewed members of Brian’s family. What surprised you the most?
How vulnerable, emotional, and sentimental they are. They are survivors, gangsters and givers all rolled in one.
Share recurring themes from the film.
Brian seems to have 9 lives; he always ejects himself from crazy situations and manages to thrive and find the silver lining behind every storm cloud. Another recurring theme is the cycle of discipline he goes through with his loved ones and colleagues when he feels that there’s a lesson that needs to be imparted.
When did you feel that we have something really powerful here that will change lives of the masses?
Midway through principle photography. I lost count of how many people came to tears in the midst of my interviews. There was a deep cleansing, purging and level of expression for healing that needed to be had. I believe that many can relate to these feelings.
What is next for you?
I signed on to produce a biopic film about Brian’s early years and I’m currently shopping for distribution for my reality series. Also, I’m finishing my own memoir and launching a self-help and DIY Public Relations book series and building my PR, Publishing, Production and Planning firm, Trea Day, LLC.