New York City has long served as both a muse and a machine for independent filmmakers and filmmaking the world over. It's true for Jamaican filmmaker Storm Saulter, whose second feature film "Sprinter" opens to wide release on April 24. He told WNYC's cultural critic Rebecca Carroll that the city helped shape his vision as an artist. 

"I moved here when I was 18," he said. "Running through the streets of New York, (riding) the subway, I became way more experimental in my vision. I was exposed to a lot more art. So New York has always been a place of creative renewal. And I kind of always check in to see what's happening here to get a gauge of things."

"Sprinter," which is executive produced by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, is a coming-of-age story about a young Jamaican runner, Akeem, who is grappling with feelings of abandonment by his stateside mother while also learning how to be a man, an athlete and a friend. Saulter said he drew directly from his own life growing up in Negril to tell Akeem's story. "At the time when I was writing it, I had recently lost my mum," he said. "So I was interested in creating a character that had lost his mum, but you know, she was within reach."