Styles of the Illest: Growing Up in Toronto

The Fifth Estate (CBC) wanted to know why young men in some neighbourhoods of Canadian cities are drawn to a culture of violence. A culture where drug sales are often a source of income, friendships are defended with weapons, and a deadly dispute can start with a disrespectful glance.

Rather than accessing this world through the police or social workers, producers wanted to document the lives of the young men in their own voices. To learn what options are available to a young person who grows up in a culture where loyalty is determined by whom you're willing to protect. And to understand how they get left behind by the systems of education, social services and justice that are supposed to protect them.

To get the access needed to tell this story, producers enlisted two young filmmakers. Paul Nguyen and Mark Simms grew up in Toronto's Jane and Finch neighbourhood, an area that has waged a decades-long battle against a reputation for violence and hopelessness.

Chuckie and Burnz met through their common love of rap music. Simms and Nguyen introduced producers at the fifth estate to three young men who have all lived with violence, at times as the victim, at times the perpetrator. Phong Nguyen, aka Chuckie, Andrew Burnett, aka Burnz and Albi Aziz, aka Freshy, all grew up in Jane and Finch. One has lived by the gun from a young age. Another desperately wants to get out of the cycle of violence and retribution but doesn't know how. The other aspires to a criminal life despite the better options available to him.

The Fifth Estate, together with Simms and Nguyen as film crew, spent 10 months following Chuckie's, Burnz' and Freshy's lives, from their criminal exploits and encounters with the justice system to their relationships with family, friends, and each other.

The turns their lives took, the dilemmas they faced and the decisions they made formed the narrative of the story. The stories that unfold are of struggle: to succeed when poverty, lack of education and opportunity pull you down; to escape from the only life you've known; and to make positive choices in the face of anger and aimlessness.