Chronicling hope in East L.A.

G-Dog is the last nickname you might expect to belong to a guy like the Rev. Greg Boyle, but the reformed gang members he works with have been calling him that for years.

A Jesuit priest who received a bachelor’s degree in English from Gonzaga University, Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit program designed to keep the at-risk youth of East L.A. off the streets. (His motto: “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”) Boyle and his staff care for nearly 12,000 kids every year, mostly from low-income families susceptible to drugs and gang violence.

Boyle’s restorative work is the subject of director Freida Mock’s documentary “G-Dog,” which showcases the counseling, job training and education that Homeboy Industries has provided since its inception in 1988.

Mock learned of Boyle’s philanthropy efforts from his book “Tattoos on the Heart,” and she assembled a film crew shortly after her first meeting with him. Less than a month into filming, economic troubles dealt Homeboy Industries a crippling blow: Boyle was forced to lay off a large portion of his staff members, and his struggles to keep his organization afloat became the primary focus of “G-Dog.”

“They called it Black Thursday,” said Erik Daarstad, the film’s director of cinematography, referring to the day Boyle announced the staff cutbacks. “It was a big moment for everybody who was there.”

Yet despite their financial struggles, Homeboy Industries, which gets most of its funding from private donations and grants, continues to enjoy a remarkable success rate. According to the film’s press materials, about 70 percent of those who have sought Boyle’s guidance have steered clear of gang-related activities following their time at Homeboy.

“I think Father Boyle plays a big part in that,” said Daarstad, who lives in Sandpoint. “He won’t turn anybody down, and he tries to help the people that need it the most. He creates a real trust among the gang members.”

Daarstad said that as he and Mock conducted interviews for the film, they began to notice similarities in many of the stories told by troubled kids at Homeboy Industries. “There’s a lot of dysfunctional families, poverty, lack of opportunity – a lack of hope, really,” he said.

And through those stories, both Mock and Daarstad gained a greater understanding of how complex the issue of gang violence in America really is. “It creates empathy for these people,” Daarstad said, “and where they come from and why they join gangs. It’s not an easy problem to solve in many ways.”

Principal photography of “G-Dog” continued off and on for about a year and a half, and during that time Mock captured both success stories and hardships. For all of the young people whose lives are turned around by Homeboy Industries, there are the unfortunate few who fall victim to the violence they were looking to escape.

There is some darkness lurking at the edges of “G-Dog,” but it is meant to be a hopeful portrait of a man whose main ambition is to make a fundamental difference to the kids he takes under his wing. “What Father Boyle does is based on unconditional love and passion and kinship,” Daarstad said. “He really is a unique human being.”