A hero built from scratch

When Anthony Jones was a child, his family navigated housing insecurity and the instability that comes with it for a decade. But while everything around him shifted, one thing stayed constant.

“I always knew I was going to be a filmmaker,” Jones said.

That certainty became his refuge. When reality felt too heavy, he escaped into stories — filling sketchbooks with heroes he created and writing adventures where courage conquered fear and hope had the final word. “My daydreams were my safe place,” he said. “If I could write them down, I could keep them forever.”

This weekend, one of those childhood creations — Kid Electric — will make its festival debut at the 26th Annual St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, presented by Cinema St. Louis. The film screens Saturday, July 18 at the Hi-Pointe Theatre before heading to San Diego Comic-Con.

“I grew up homeless for 10 years,” Jones said. “Storytelling became the one thing that kept me grounded.”

Heroes Among Us: Kid Electric follows Warren Ryder, a homeless teenager whose electric powers are tied to his emotions. As the story unfolds, Warren learns that becoming a hero isn’t about defeating villains — it’s about choosing compassion in a complicated world.

“I didn’t want another superhero who was chosen or born special,” Jones said. “I wanted a kid who had to build himself from scratch.”

The character grew out of moments when Jones felt pulled in different directions by peers and circumstances. “I remembered that I had written a story about a kid dealing with that — trying to get his powers under control because they were tied to his emotions,” he said. “That’s where the inception of him came from.”

But Kid Electric is also Jones’ challenge to the narrow roles Black characters are often confined to.

“Why can’t a hero be dark-skinned?” he said. “Why can’t that person also be a person of color? I don’t want to tell the slave stories. I don’t want to tell stories about us in the hood killing each other. Those stories have been told. Now let’s start showing people where we want to go — what we want to be.”

Jones was one of three siblings born to a Jamaican mother. He lived all over before landing in the Metro East. A graduate of Collinsville High School, the 30-year-old said growing up Black and housing insecure meant adults often assumed they already knew how his story would end. “They already had a narrative for me,” he said. “But I didn’t want to be somebody else’s statistic.”

This year’s St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase takes place July 17–26. The festival features 69 films across 14 curated programs, including work by 26 student filmmakers, 15 first-time directors, and 25 filmmakers under age 30.

Festival Director Emmett Williams describes the theme as “A Shared Light” — a reflection of the collaborative spirit fueling the region’s growing film community.

“Year after year, St. Louis artists push boundaries and capture the true heart of our film community,” said Cinema St. Louis Festival Director Emmett Williams. “This showcase proves that when we share our light, we show the world exactly who we are.”

Jones said that spirit is woven into Kid Electric. “So many of the people who worked on this film are my friends,” he said. “We’ve all come up together. Nobody believed in us early on. This showcase gives all of us a chance to celebrate what we created together.”

The festival also includes new work from St. Louis filmmakers Cami Thomas and Travis Haughton, whose latest projects continue their commitment to telling emotionally grounded, community-centered stories.

Jones’ path to the showcase was long and often difficult. He attended Southwestern Illinois College before leaving to pursue filmmaking full time. He worked at Walmart by day and spent nights directing independent projects while building experience as a camera assistant and crew member. He later worked on productions across Louisiana, Texas, California, and Arizona before returning to St. Louis to build his directing career.

“I just kept asking myself, ‘What’s the next set I can get on?’” Jones said. “I knew I had to keep getting better.”

That persistence paid off. He is a successful director of commercials. And Kid Electric has already earned invitations beyond St. Louis, including its upcoming screening at Comic-Con. But Jones said premiering the film before a hometown audience may be the most meaningful moment of all.

“The filmmakers here have just as much to say as anybody coming in from out of town,” he said. “We can tell stories about this community because we live them.”

At its heart, Kid Electric isn’t about superpowers. It’s about choosing hope — and believing in possibility even when the world tries to define you by circumstance.

Asked what he would tell his younger self, Jones didn’t hesitate.

“Everything you believe about yourself — keep believing it,” he said. “People are going to call you crazy and weird. Let them. One day your film will be at Comic-Con.”

For Jones, this moment is simply another chapter in the story he started writing long before anyone else believed it could come true.

“And this is just 30-year-old me telling you that,” Jones said. “Imagine what 40-year-old me is gonna tell you!”

The 26th Annual St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase will take place from July 17–26 at the Hi-Pointe Theatre, 1005 McCausland Ave. (at McCausland and Clayton). For tickets, additional information, and a full schedule of films, visit www.cinemastlouis.org.

Living It content is produced with funding by the ARPA for the Arts grants program in partnership with the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis and the Community Development Administration.

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