Domingo Guyton remembers the feeling of walking alone at night in Worcester to buy a snack at the local White Hen Pantry. For the first time in a long while, he felt comfortable — and safe.
“It was so peaceful,” he recalls. “I had come to Worcester to escape the foolishness in Boston, and here, no one knew me. Those walks were some of my most peaceful moments.”
The “foolishness” in his Mattapan neighborhood included gang violence that he was desperate to leave behind. After his senior year of high school, Guyton had made his way to Worcester State University, and after graduation, he stayed in the city for 19 years, working with local kids at organizations like You Inc., the YMCA, and the Worcester Youth Center. Through programs like Get Off the Block, he encouraged teens to “be better with their time” and find productive pathways for their lives.
At the college level, he taught community health and sociology classes at Worcester State.
He was also an aspiring filmmaker, whose documentary about a slavery museum won Best Documentary at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival in 2007. Today, Guyton is a third-grade teacher in Metro Atlanta, and he continues to make movies.
On Tuesday, April 7, he returns to Worcester, this time to Clark, where he will screen his latest film, “Yesterday Today Forever” at 7 p.m. in Jefferson 320. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Guyton.
Rooted in his Christian faith, Guyton’s film is a retelling of the biblical story of the disciple Peter’s denial of Jesus, told through a modern-day lens of Atlanta culture and hip-hop. The plot “explores what it means to wrestle with belief, guilt, and redemption in a world that constantly tests conviction,” according to the movie’s website. Guyton is co-writer with Siddeeqah Powell, and also serves as producer and music supervisor. Ty Manns directs.
“Yesterday Today Forever” began as a short film that he and Powell began fleshing out into a full-length feature in 2014. Initially, they planned to focus the narrative on the Jesus character but were instead attracted to the complexity of Peter as “a strong-willed, problematic person,” Guyton says. Throughout the creative process of building the characters, he notes, they strived to remain true to the story’s biblical origins.
“Yesterday Today Forever” debuted to a sold-out audience in Duluth, Georgia, in December, and had a second screening at the Black Art & Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Florida. The screening at Clark will be its third public showing. Guyton says he’s eager to reconnect with his Worcester friends and associates, including Clark Dean of the College Laurie Ross, with whom he collaborated on community-support efforts in the city.
A composer and producer with a deep history in and connection to the hip-hop world, Guyton notes that music is key to his film — the soundtrack of “Yesterday Today Forever” features 32 original songs. “With all the hell I went through in Boston, music became my therapy,” he acknowledges.
Guyton, a married father of two daughters, says he’s one of those people who enjoys pursuing new and exciting opportunities. He has four more movies in various stages of development, and, when he spoke to ClarkU News from Atlanta last week, he said he was looking forward to recording a soundtrack on Monday when he was back in Massachusetts.
“My wife asks me, ‘Can’t you just relax a minute?’” he laughs. “But I’m always on to the next thing.”
