Plaquemines Parish and it’s unique political history must be documented. This is not just an untold history of the racist south, not another tale of greedy and corrupt politicians.  It is the story of a uniquely American dictatorship and how a small group of people, lead by my father, Luke Petrovich, successfully tore down an empire.  Early in the 20th century, vast amounts of oil was found throughout Plaquemines Parish, one of the poorest Parishes in Louisiana.  Following this discovery, Leander Perez built an empire based on theft, intimidation, and lies to become one of the most powerful segregationist leaders of the South; intensely loved, intensely feared.  This film is an account of the life of my father, a man deeply involved in the Perez dynasty, who chose to go against all he knew and dismantle the very system that made him. We begin by trying to understand how a political strong man would use the government itself to steal millions and build an empire of authoritarianism on American soil.  I want to document the experiences of people under that regime, many of whom are elderly now, in order to get a first hand view of what life was like under Perez.  I will explore not only how he gained power, but how he held it through campaigns of lies, intimidation, and political genius.   It is essential to know how this unique dictatorship was born and how it remained for so many years under the nose of ‘democracy’.  The Perez shadow looms long over the Parish even to this day, so documenting the psychological and sociological impact of such a regime is essential.  There is a tremendous amount of trauma in the Parish in regards to Perez and his violent hold on power. It’s directly reflected in the ultimate demise of my father who was successful in removing the Perez family from power, but was consumed with anxiety and fear and died years later penniless and forgotten. 

There is no benefit in viewing the human conscience with austerity, but there is in bearing witness to it’s complexities and such is the exploration into the life and choices of my father, Luke Petrovich.  A child of the Croatian immigrants of Plaquemines, a “son” to Perez who ultimately fought to correct a wrong.  I will explore this essential choice, what drove him to start a seemingly impossible fight against immense power with infinite money.  He used the legal system, redistricting, and grass roots canvasing to inspire change in a place racked with complacency and fear, it was an ingenious grass roots effort which eventually achieved the first free election in 40 years. My father was a man of wealth and power within a system, who would ultimately give up everything to destroy it.  He went against his own love for Judge Perez, his own memories and demons, faced personal threats, intimidation, and slander;  he sacrificed his family, career, mind, and legacy to take down an empire and free people from tyranny.  

CONCEPT SUMMARY

From the discovery of oil to at the time of his birth to decimation following Hurricane Katrina one year after his death, the very rise and fall of Plaquemines Parish ran parallel to the life and death of my father.   In the early 1930’s, Judge Leander Perez realized the potential for growth in the Parish and took the opportunity to expand his power from neighboring St. Bernard Parish and lay the foundation for what would amount to authoritarian rule of the land and people of Plaquemines.  As Perez was rewriting Louisiana law and seizing lands, Luka Andrea Petrovich was born at 905 Royal Street, New Orleans to Croatian immigrants.  He and his sisters grew up in exceptional poverty in the heart of the Slavonian village of Olga deep in south Plaquemines, a tough immigrant world that has yet to be properly documented.  This is the beginning of our story where we explore the foundation of the Perez legacy,  pieces of the puzzle my father would use later to destroy the regime.  Perez illegally obtained lands and mineral rights by stealing public and strong arming the rights from poor, largely black communities and the ingenious way Perez manipulated the system and rewrote laws to create a nearly infallible empire.  As wealth came to the Parish, Luke finished college, eventually attending Tulane Law School.  He was brilliant and the Judge took him under his wing, becoming his mentor, and appointing him to Commissioner of Public Safety.  He continued to work closely with Perez, so closely in fact that he would often be referred to as “the Judge’s third son”.  My father was constantly at his side, there will be a deep exploration of this relationship as I have always been confounded by it.  My father had a strict and deliberate moral code and yet he worked for and admired one of the most corrupt and notoriously cruel segregationists in Louisiana political history, a fact that I can not reconcile and will dig into within the context of the film. 

At the end of his reign, Perez placed his two sons into power, Chalin as council President and Lee as District Attorney.  Both men became notorious in their own rights for their iron fist style of leadership and constant use of intimidation and abuse of power.  They lacked, however, the same level of intelligence and charm their father had and therefore failed to obtain the same blindly loyal following so essential to their father’s reign.  Within ten years of their father’s death, the boys began fighting exposing an achille's heel in what was once an infallible hold on power.  By the time my father filed his first lawsuits against the Perez family, there had not been a free election in Plaquemines Parish for over 40 years.  40 years of tyranny and fear that my father had benefited from, participated in and was now poised to destroy.  The story here is more complex than right or wrong as once my father discovered a way to expose the long held secret of Perez wealth he did so obsessively, with broken hearted anguish, with rage.  Taking on the decades long strong hold the Perez family had on Plaquemines Parish is the pinnacle of the story.  As we have spent the first part of the film laying out the sociological and political environment of the Parish, here is where we dive into the crimes of it’s political leaders and how a group of historically loyal Perez allies finally found their voices and returned power to the people.  The film will delve into the strategy taken by my father and his associates eventually leading to Chalin Perez’s ouster from Parish council, an investigation into the District Attorney’s office, and the exposing of and return of millions in oil revenue.  Many people before my father had tried to take down the Perez family, but only my father was successful in this and there are very specific reasons why.  I want to go into great detail as to his methods, whether or not it had to be someone from within the system, and what caused him to make the final choice to act. What sparked this moral agenda?  What turned him after so many years of loyal service?  Was it sudden, or had he been biding his time collecting evidence?  How much did he really know of the Perez empire when he was on the inside?  To help in telling this story, I will conduct interviews with residents of the Parish who lived under the regime, understanding their lives and experiences.  I will interview people involved in the politics of the time, and people who helped my father to change the Political structure of Plaquemines.  

I also have reels of 16mm film shot in Plaquemines as part of a project done by Chalin and my father before the fall out.  This never before seen footage shot in the early 1970’s will aid in showing how the Parish and it’s people have changed since the fall out as the Parish has felt a steep decline exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  I also have cassette tapes form the time of recorded phone calls from when my father tapped out home phone.  These conversations, collected over years, expose the depths of Perez wealth and corruption and well as the decline of my fathers mental health over the time of the fight.  Through many conversations with cohorts and council members, he becomes increasingly paranoid and anxious, his sole focus being keeping the Perez’s out of power in Plaquemines.  My father was born under a political regime, a dictatorship that thrived on American soil, created of an essential American business, oil.  I want to explore the effects of living and working under such an empire, telling the story of Plaquemines through my father, the strong arm populism that built the empire that pulled him from poverty to wealth and power; and when he chose to stop playing the game, brought to an eventual end.