Los Angeles, CA (TOP40 Charts/ Lakeshore Records) -- Lakeshore Records will release the La Mission -- Original Soundtrack, available digitally (iTunes and Amazon Digital) on April 13, 2010. Mark Kilian (Tsotsi, Before the Rains) composed the original score. Born and raised in South Africa, Mark Kilian came to the United States to pursue a career in film scoring in 1994. His academic life in his native country (Masters Degree in Composition) and very active performing career as a pianist who played with
Darius Brubeck and Shirley Bassey, prepared him for his enrollment into USC's Film Scoring program. Upon completion he was hired by film composer
Christopher Young and then later joined
Machine Head in Venice where he wrote music for countless TV commercials for companies like Apple, Budweiser, American Express and Toyota.
Mark's first feature film Lovergirl was scored in 1997 and since then he has written scores for a wide variety of films including Traitor, Rendition, Before the Rains and most notably Tsotsi which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. His latest film The Ward has him working with legendary horror director John Carpenter. Recent films Legacy and The Least Among You are also being released in 2010.
Growing up in the Mission district of San Francisco, Che Rivera (Benjamin Bratt) has always had to be tough to survive. He's a powerful man respected throughout the Mission barrio for his masculinity and his strength, as well as for his hobby building beautiful lowrider cars. At the same time he's also a man feared for his street-tough ways and violent temper.
A reformed inmate and recovering alcoholic, Che has worked hard to redeem his life and do right by his pride and joy: his only son, Jes, whom he has raised on his own after the death of his wife. Che's path to redemption is tested, however, when he discovers Jes is gay. In a rage, Che violently beats Jes, disowning him. He loses his son and loses himself in the process. Isolated and alone, Che comes to realize that his patriarchal pride is meaningless to him, and to maintain his idea of masculinity he's sacrificed the one thing that he cherishes most the love of his son.
To survive his neighborhood, Che has always lived with his fists. To survive as a complete man, he'll have to embrace a side of himself he's never shown.
"I ventured deeper into the musical culture than what you hear walking around the mission district in San Francisco," described Kilian. "Rather than building the score out of the kinds of music and sounds that these characters listen to now, I went in deeper to include musical influences that came from their parents and grandparents. The deeper you go in culturally, the more you can find that unifying and common thread in a story, especially in such a multicultural story."
Screen Media Films presents La Mission, in theaters in select cities now. The La Mission Original Soundtrack on Lakeshore Records is available digitally.
