Everyone’s got bigger plans at Nova Scotia’s Cole Harbour high school—and a lot of baggage tying them down. That’s the case with acclaimed videographer Director X’s feature-length debut Across the Line, opening Friday (April 8)

Mattie Slaughter (Stephan James) has the opportunity of a lifetime when he’s offered a position on an NHL farm team. Problem is, he’s caught between issues at home, trouble with his hustling brother Carter (Shamier Anderson), and the burgeoning racial tension in school.

For Jayme Crawley (Sarah Jefferey), the product of an interracial marriage, she’s in the middle of two opposing communities who never really accept her (even going so far as calling her “half-breed”.) Her boyfriend, John (Steven Love), is no less troubled by these matters, especially since Jayme wants escape to Toronto.

“It’s a real life story,” says X of the multi-layered, coming-of-age drama, during a call to the Straight from Toronto. “I feel that it has a lot more connection [to the viewer] as opposed to a typical movie. This one comes at you inspired by real life.”

The events X refers to occurred in 1989, when more than 40 students and others of mixed race brawled in Cole Harbour high school’s parking lot. Two days later, the fighting continued with over 100 students involved.

What’s even more harrowing is that this has been commonplace in the 25 years since.

“You have two homogenous neighbourhoods that don’t get along,” he saysof  Halifax’s Eastern Passage and North Preston. “The black Nova Scotian community has been there since the 1700s, these people are Canadian, and yet, when they walk out into the world, they feel like they don’t belong—even from the people that come from there who know the history.”

With Across the Line, the filmmaker—who is probably best known for helming Drake’s “Hotline Bling” video—says he also tried to address all sides of the issue.

“I wanted to make sure that this was an even-handed thing. It wasn’t just white people being mean to black people,” says X. “By the time the film is done, it’s not so cut and dry. It’s not white people bad and black people good.”

For Jefferey’s character, it’s a question of identity; a struggle that the Toronto-born X identifies with strongly, being half-Swiss and half-Trinidadian.

“I know what it means to be in that position. We live in a world where we have these roles we’re supposed to fit into,” he says. “I was in school where there were still skinheads, with all these different cultures slamming into one another. So you have all these messages [people] are throwing at you. And, [when you’re young], you’re too young to know that the correct answer to these expectations is: ‘Fuck your expectations.’ ”