The intense richness of an African-American family’s everyday struggles, heartbreaks and triumphs is captured in Jonathan Olshefski’s new award-winning documentary “Quest.”
Filmed for almost a decade, the documentary follows the saga of the Rainey family in North Central Philadelphia. Christopher “Quest” and Christine’a “Ma Quest” welcome budding hip-hop artists into their home studio not only to nurture their creative aspirations, but also to build community among young people who look up to Quest as a mentor, a guardian, a friend.
Olshefski’s lens documents the Raineys’ cluttered, lived-in house, the home studio overflowing with creative energy and possibilities, Philly streets brimming with life, culture and love. The story focuses on the partnership between Quest and Christine’a. In many ways, they are a typical young couple: juggling household responsibilities, raising a daughter. But surviving one of the worst economic upheavals in American history has added another layer of complexity to their coupling. Quest holds down several jobs – including a paper route that starts at 3am – as Ma Quest works full-time in a women’s shelter.
Quest’s home studio serves as the aspirational launching pad of hungry and talented hip-hop artists. But the struggle to stay on course is real. Price – one of their most promising artists – loses his battle with addictions as he abandons his music and denies dependence on drugs and alcohol.
Christine’a Rainey’s quiet strength and resolve in holding the family together amid all turbulence, in spite of her own personal setback, in spite of cancer and a family tragedy. Hosting young people in their home for “Freestyle Friday,” her reputation as a caretaker only solidified. “I don’t want to be everybody’s Mom, but somewhere along the line, they started calling me Ma.” As she helps to care for her grandchild while William, her only son, undergoes chemotherapy, Ma Quest supports the family through her job at a facility that harbors women and their children who are survivors of violence. When PJ suffers a terrible accident, we see Christine’a keeping on, holding her head up with that unbelievable capacity to carry pain, her own and that of everyone around her.
With the anguish over PJ’s accident, we see the community coming together to offer support. Even with fleeting moments of rage about disenfranchisement, about being forgotten, neighbors and friends gather to share compassion and kindness.
It’s disheartening to be reminded that our elected officials have been calling for gun control for more than a decade. Yet, here we are, years hence. Not one step closer to solving the epidemic of gun violence in America’s streets.
In a predominantly Black working class neighborhood, footage celebrating the ascension of the first Black president to the White House evokes reflection about what the Obama presidency meant to communities of color. Of course, there was hope, plenty of it. But even as Quest reminds friends to vote, there remained the unspoken resignation that change may not reach the streets. The political undercurrents of racial and class struggles in a historic presidency could not overpower the certainty that communities survive economic ups and downs by caring for each other.
"Quest" opens December 15 at Laemmle's Monica Film Center in Los Angeles.
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