Entries tagged with “Political Films” from Rooftop Films Blog

New York Underground Film Festival
April 2-8, 2008
@ Anthology Film Archives
www.nyuff.com
Tickets

March 27 @ 9:45pm
Selections from the 2007 NYUFF
@ IFC Center
Tickets



The New York Underground Film Festival, a venerable anti-establishmentarian institution, the godfather of all "Underground" film festivals, will be hosting its 15th and Final installation in April, and then doing what any good punk rocker should do: dying young and . . . re-establishing itself as year-round programming consortium called "Migrating Forms."

The NYUFF has always been a haven for strange and beautiful, shocking and revealing avant garde cinema, and is definitely a big inspiration for Rooftop. I'll certainly be out for many screenings, including films by the following Rooftop alums: Jim Finn, Jacqueline Goss, Patrick Jolley, Jeanne Liotta, Jennifer Matotek, Seth Price, Robert Todd, Keith Wilson, Bryan Boyce, Lyn Elliot, Kent Lambert, Darrin Martin, Eileen Maxson, Kelly Oliver, Keary Rosen, Shelly Silver, Jim Trainor, Cory Arcangel, Skizz Cyzyk, Joe Nanashe, Moira Tierney, and Aaron Valdez (film pictured).

Check back here to the Rooftop Films blog for some write-ups and reviews of films, and I hope to see you there!

Last night I attended the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors, co-chaired by AJ Schnack and Thom Powers, produced by Danielle DiGiacomo, and presented by IndiePix at the IFC Center. I have never been a big fan of awards for art. I'm a big sports fan, and a competitive person, but I don't judge success in anything based on being first, or on winning an award (or an Honor, or whatever you want to call it.)

I play on an amateur baseball team, and I want to win. But if winning were the only goal, I would've long since stopped playing, knowing that I'll never win the ultimate prize, a Major League World Series. I root for the Mets because, at least in my idealized conception of the team, the organization doesn't consider every season a failure if they don't win the championship. There are great playoff streaks, memorable games, astonishing plays, and touching personal stories, even in a losing season. (My Mets fandom could be its own blog, so I'll wrap this up by saying,) I appreciate sports in a manner more like the way many people appreciate art: I enjoy the aesthetics, the excitement, the emotion, and the narrative, and the end result is equally powerful whether it makes me happy or sad, so long as I am moved.

So the idea of awards for art seems to me somehow antithetical to the point of art; an award is an artificial high which doesn't stem from the work itself, but instead is bestowed upon the film in relation to other films. I had usually passed on the opportunity to vote in awards, even declining to submit a ballot for audience choice awards at festivals.

That said, when Sundance asked me to be on the jury in 2007, it took about half a second for me to say yes. So I had to ask myself if I was being a hypocrite. And in the end I came to the conclusion that has been arrived at by most thoughtful people who are in favor of awards for art: by giving awards to certain deserving works, you raise the level of attention for the form. As Thom Powers wrote in his introduction to the Cinema Eye Honors, "We don't expect you to agree with all our choices. Rather we hope this will be an occasion for increased debate and discussion." When I agreed to be on the jury at Sundance, I figured I could help out the types of groundbreaking, personal cinema that I think deserves more attention that it gets, even coming out of Sundance. And, of course, I was excited at the possibility of representing Rooftop Films, and raising the profile for the work that all of our programmers past and present (Joshua Breitbart, Moira Griffin, Dan Nuxoll, Sarah Palmer, Genevieve DeLaurier) believe in, fight for, want to see more of, and want to share.

Before and at the Cinema Eye Honors, there was some grumbling about the eligibility criteria, which (in short) limit the possible nominees to films that have played at major festivals, won awards at major festivals, or been seen by a certain number of people in theaters. There's a sense that these are the films that have already garnered some acclaim and audiences, even to the point of reaching wide national release and Academy Award recognition. I understand the feeling, because in a room full of avid festival watchers, these are the films we've heard about over and over.

But let's keep in mind the broader picture of audience awareness. By my estimation, via Box Office Mojo, no film nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking (the equivalent of Best Picture), was seen by more than 150,000 people--less than the number of people living within three square miles of the IFC Center. Tony Kaye's abortion documentary "Lake of Fire" was perhaps seen by 3,000 people--about as many people as saw "Juno" on any given screen on any given day in the first week of its 104 day, 2,534 theater release. Correct me if my numbers are wrong (I'll admit I'm not an expert at box office stats), but outside the independent film community, these films have not been widely seen or recognized.

So these awards are certainly needed, and it's impressive what the Cinema Eye team has accomplished in such a short time. If they have the energy to do it again--and I hope they do--I think in order to gain wider relevance to the mainstream public, while also entertaining and informing Cinema Eye's core audience of indie film professionals, there are a couple of ways they might work to expand.

IndiePix and IFC have done a commendable job in supporting these awards, but jointly the Cinema Eye group could actively work to get a wider release for the films. The trick here would be getting distributors to believe that the Cinema Eye Honor would help a theatrical run. That's no mean feat, but I think it's a necessary and worthy goal in order to keep the awards from devolving into hermetic self-congratulation.

As for keeping this hermetic community happy, I think the eligibility should be expanded to include at least one category for the best film that didn't play at multiple fests, didn't win awards, and didn't get a theatrical release--essentially just reverse all the eligibility requirements for what they could call the Underexposed Award. It's more work for the nominators, but by finding the films that not even most industry insiders have seen, the Cinema Eye Honors could launch awareness for a truly marginalized film.

As an awards ceremony itself, the event was slick but homey, weighty when it needed to be but generally lighthearted, informative but not ponderous. I particularly loved the mid-ceremony discussion group, which featured the fierce insights of Esther B. Robinson and the goofy dynamism of Jason Kohn. Still, the structure and format felt like just about every other awards ceremony, which is a disappointment for an event that is celebrating narrative craft. Of course, coming from Rooftop Films--where for 12 years we've been trying to stage new ways of presenting films--I would level such a criticism, but I think if the Cinema Eye Honors want to want to break some boundaries and maintain this level of interest in the event itself, in the coming years they would do well to try to stretch the format of their show, much they way the artists they are honoring are challenging the formats of non-fiction filmmaking.

I think when the dance floor clears at the after-party and the dust settles back onto Thom's tux, the Cinema Eye Honors will have succeeded in generating some more attention for some artful and deserving documentaries. I hope that some of the more mainstream press picks up on the awards and brings the spirit of the event, and the films themselves, to a wider audience.

At Rooftop Films, I think we'll proudly stick to a non-competitive model, instead giving away grants for filmmakers' future productions. But I'm glad that the Cinema Eye Awards exist, and send a huge congratulations to AJ, Thom, Danielle, all the nominators and voters, and of course to all the filmmakers who have made these wonderful films, so deserving of attention.

* * * * *

For a rundown of the event, visit IndieWire. Here is their complete list of Cinema Eye winners:

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking
"Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)"
Director - Jason Kohn, Producers - Joey Frank, Jared Goldman & Jason Kohn

Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Alex Gibney
"Taxi to the Dark Side"

Outstanding Achievement in Production
Seth Kanegis, Tomas Radoor & Mikael Rieks
"Ghosts of Cite Soleil"

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Heloisa Passos
"Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)"

Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Doug Abel, Jenny Golden & Andy Grieve
"Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)"

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
Animation by Curious Pictures
"Chicago 10"

Outstanding International Feature
"The Monastery - Mr. Vig & The Nun" (above, middle)
Director - Pernille Rose Gronkjaer, Producer - Sigrid Dyekjaer

Outstanding Achievement in Debut Feature
"Billy the Kid" (above, top)
Director - Jennifer Venditti

Audience Choice Prize
"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" (above, bottom)
Director - Seth Gordon

Late last night, after jumping from IFC's My Morning Jacket / Yo La Tengo concert to the wide-open SXSW Closing Night party and finally onto Joel Heller's birthday, I wound up at the Magnolia diner, eating scrambled eggs and discussing scrambled documentaries. I was there with Dan Nuxoll from Rooftop, Joel, and Alex Karpovsky and Eric Bruggermann, the director and editor, respectively, of "The Hole Story" and 2008 SXSW selection "Woodpecker."

I brought up the fascinating dialogue about the distinctions of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking that I had heard surrounding some of the films here at SXSW, including Alex's film(s), Daniel Stamm's "A Necessary Death," and even films as different as Nanette Burstein's "American Teen," Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" and Josh Safdie's "The Pleasure of Being Robbed," where categorical definitions would appear pretty straightforward. We'd heard a rumor that when "A Necessary Death" played one European festival, it was in the documentary section, and the crowd was incensed.

Why is it that people get so mad about films that blur these distinctions or even deliberately mislead the audience? Do these distinctions matter? And if so, how should we be defining these films?

[To read this entire article, please click here.]

In a certain way, this entire review is a spoiler, so if you don't want to know too much, skip my writings and go see the film. Herein, I don't really tell you the plot--an exciting and gripping drama--but I do get at the essence of the film.  I highly recommend it.

In Daniel Stamm's "A Necessary Death," we see a young film student known for taking wild risks as a filmmaker wants to make a documentary about someone who plans to commit suicide. His friends think it's a crazy idea, and while some of them agree to help, his roommate decides to document the making of the documentary. They post an ad online, interview some suicidal candidates, and finally settle on a young man with a terminal brain tumor who wants to kill himself before he has to suffer. The nature of the filmmaking process, and a series of manipulations, romances, and discoveries, lead the film in a taut and tragic trajectory.

At the SXSW premiere, after the screening, the audience gasped at the sight of the supposedly dead actors. The director of the film asked for a show of hands as to how many people thought it was a documentary through to the end, and fully half the crowd raised their hands. But it's not a documentary. It's a brilliantly executed work of fiction.

At the Q & A, one woman walked out 2/3rds of the way through, but came back at the end to discuss the film. She had believed it was a documentary, and was too disturbed to watch, but raised the question about filmmaking and audience complicity in this "death." Even if it turns out to be a narrative, what does it say about our society if we want to watch something like this?

My first reaction to that is, how is it different from watching a film about a war, or about someone dying of a disease? Presumably, death in those circumstances is completely inevitable and out of the filmmakers' control. In the rare circumstances when a filmmaker has a chance to save a life, they probably usually do put down the camera. But it's never just that simple. For example, what if a filmmaker in a war knows that someone is injured, but continues to film something else rather than helping, because to help would mean to stop filming?

I believe that most of the filmmakers whose films play at Rooftop and SXSW and similar festivals truly do want to help their subjects and the causes they stand for. They want to tell the story so that audience members can engage with the issue. If they stop filming, the one person may be sacrificed, but the larger issue of the film will carry on, eventually (so the hope goes) saving many people.

That was my initial reaction--an idealistic and utilitarian one. But frankly it didn't sit right with me. It felt morally thin. Talking to my extremely kind-hearted girlfriend Stephanie Skaff and to filmmaker/Docs That Inspire-writer Joel Heller about the topic, they expressed what I think is the key to the issue: a filmmaker who genuinely cares about his subjects wouldn't allow themselves to simply watch, and not interfere in order to save a life or help an individual. Of course, in every situation, the filmmaker has to make careful distinctions and choices, but I think one can probably draw a close link between the lasting humanity of a given film and the ability of that filmmaker to make the "right" choice as to when to interfere and when to keep rolling.

That still leaves the complicated issue of suicide, and this non-documentary "A Necessary Death." Personally, I think if I was working on a documentary about a potential suicide, the goal of the film would be to work through the issue of suicide and to engage audience members in a dialogue which could eventually help people. So I would try to help the person work through their issues, see if there was a solution before death, assist them in making the best choice for themselves. And if suicide were still the choice, I'd be willing to roll the camera.

"A Necessary Death" I think succeeds in raising and addressing the issues of the role of the documentarian, the viewer, and all witnesses and friends. In the film, the tragedy is not the suicide, but the fact that clearly the friends and documentarian have not done enough to engage and help, letting a man kill himself when he was not in fact at peace with that choice.

At least that's my take on this very thought-provoking film. If you get a chance, check it out so we can talk more.

Carroll Pickett was a minister in Huntsville, TX--a place best known for its many prisons and high number of executions--when two of his parishioners were taken hostage in an infamous prison riot in 1974. He was called in to try to broker peace, but his friends were eventually killed, and Pickett vowed to never return to that prison.

But years later, the prison asked him to become the chaplain, and he thought he could do some valuable work for the people there. Indeed he did, until suddenly his job description changed, and he was asked to be the minister presiding over executions. He would spend all day with the condemned, getting to know them, listening to their fears, concerns and confessions, and aiding any of their last wishes. Pickett agreed in principal with the death penalty, but he certainly had trepidation about the burden of task.

Over 15 years, he was at 95 executions, each a fascinating story. And over those years, Pickett's opinion of the death penalty changed completely.

"At the Death House Door," directed by Steve James and Peter Glibert, is a gripping, fascinating, powerful film about Pickett, about a wrongly-executed man named Carlos De Luna and his family, and about the tragic moral mistake that is the death penalty. Pickett's character unfolds with a stately grace. Being a old-fashioned Texan, he's reluctant to reveal his emotions, a trait which only makes them burn with more ferocity as you see them shine through. In the Q & A, he was asked why it took him so long to come to the conclusions he did, he said that he's "just hard-headed." But in the film, you see an amazing evolution of a man's feelings and ideology, a rare and stunning transformation to see in a documentary, or really in life in general (aren't we all pretty stubborn in our beliefs?)

After every execution, Pickett recorded an audio diary of what happened and what he was thinking and feeling. Until the documentary, not even his family knew these tapes existed, and watching Picket re-listening to them in the film is one of the most harrowing looks into man's soul that I've ever seen.

Finally, the execution of Hector De Luna, a man who Pickett suspected was innocent, is enough to set the ball in motion for Pickett to leave the prison and become an anti-death penalty activist. Emotionally, Pickett was verging on destruction. But he harnesses these core moral disturbances and uses them (and an array of factual evidence) to fight against the death penalty. He actively campaigns now, arguing that not only is the death penalty cruel and painful, not only are there irremediable mistakes made, not is the penalty ineffective as a criminal deterrent (there are hundreds more people on death row now than there were when it was reinstated 30 years ago), but it's a fundamentally immoral act, that's "not Christian, it's not American, and it's not Texan," a moral blight on our society which makes us weaker as a people.

In the Q & A, someone wondered if they film might be more effective if it also focused on some of the victims, and the filmmakers' rightly pointed out that in many ways this is a film about victims. It's one side of the death penalty story, surely, but one that crucially implicates all Americans in continuing to allow this injustice.

"I'm angry," says Rose De Luna, the sister of the wrongly-executed Hector De Luna. "Stay that way," Pickett says.

We all need to get angry.

If you don't get a chance to see it at SXSW, the film will be on IFC in May, and perhaps at Rooftop some time soon. I would love the honor to show this to people, and sure wish that a few of them might be on the Supreme Court.

[This is the complete article originally published on March 13, 2008.]

Late last night, after jumping from IFC's My Morning Jacket / Yo La Tengo concert to the wide-open SXSW Closing Night party and finally onto Joel Heller's birthday, I wound up at the Magnolia diner, eating scrambled eggs and discussing scrambled documentaries. I was there with Dan Nuxoll from Rooftop, Joel, and Alex Karpovsky and Eric Bruggermann, the director and editor, respectively, of "The Hole Story" and 2008 SXSW selection "Woodpecker" (pictured left).

I brought up the fascinating dialogue about the distinctions of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking that I had heard surrounding some of the films here at SXSW, including Alex's film(s), Daniel Stamm's "A Necessary Death," and even films as different as Nanette Burstein's "American Teen," Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" and Josh Safdie's "The Pleasure of Being Robbed," where categorical definitions would appear pretty straightforward. We'd heard a rumor that when "A Necessary Death" played one European festival, it was in the documentary section, and the crowd was incensed.

Why is it that people get so mad about films that blur these distinctions or even deliberately mislead the audience? Do these distinctions matter? And if so, how should we be defining these films?

One of the first things we realized is that general audience members, far more than film critics, filmmakers, and film programmers, do question what's "real." You hear in Q & A sessions how important it is to them. And a great number of film professionals also debate (and confuse) these terms and distinctions. So the distinctions do matter. And I think the first reason why they matter, why people want to know if a film is a work of fiction or non-fiction, is because people don't like "being suckered" (as entertainment lawyer and SXSW panelist Alan Levy put it when I was discussing the issue with him). Being suckered is different from being tricked: a murder mystery tricks you, but that's what you want it to do; a fiction film that poses as a non-fiction film (the thinking goes) suckers you. People think that the film is somehow lying to you, which you don't want it to do.

I think this discrepancy comes initially from expectation: when you go to see an action movie, you don't want to find yourself instead watching a quiet drama. When you see certain documentary aesthetics, you expect that what you are seeing is non-fiction. So the second and more important reason why audience members want to know the nature of the film is because of the inherent differences in the way we interact with fiction and non-fiction films. People are more likely to immediately connect emotionally with non-fiction characters because one of the greatest challenges of fiction cinema--effective suspension of disbelief--is alleviated. When a character in a fiction film does something outlandish, an audience member is likely to think, "No one would ever do that." Not so in documentary; you have to assume they really did it. So when you think a film is non-fiction, and it turns out to be scripted, you mistrust your own emotional reading of the film. The same is true in reverse for non-fiction films. Every camera move and edit in a documentary is of course a manipulation of reality, yet people still get hung up on the details of some non-attainable objective truth.

With either fiction or non-fiction, that mental approach to film watching is limiting. We should be able to watch a movie, and analyze our feelings and our thoughts based on the emotions expressed and the ideas addressed, not solely on whether it was "real." I think keeping the lines between fiction and non-fiction blurry is a wise move. Whether the filmmaker writes a story and casts actors to play the characters, or if the filmmaker follows the story of people leading their existing lives, the goals are the same for any film: to entertain the audience, to enlighten them, to take them to emotional highs and lows.

This is where films like Safdie's "The Pleasure of Being Robbed" and Burstein's "American Teen" come in. I thought "American Teen" was entertaining and engaging, but I didn't love the film because of some of the manipulations--jumps in time to enhance the weight of an emotion, moments that are clearly created in the editing room but didn't happen live. My problem isn't the manipulations per se, and I don't doubt the veracity of the basic facts. My problem is that because of those manipulations, I didn't really connect with the characters. I thought the jumps in time simplified complex emotions, and the forged scenes fell flat. When watching either a non-fiction or a fiction film, you understand that this isn't an objective reality, but if the cuts and camera angles fail to create a subjective emotional and intellectual truth, the film has failed.

In contrast, some scenes in Josh Safdie's film are, as he put it, "stolen"--he caught people on the street unawares and wrote them into his narrative. I was impressed by the way he was able to fluidly bring these elements into his rather fantastical story, and from a narrative standpoint, I was touched by the interactions.

Karpovsky's "Woodpecker" is a brilliant example of the way a filmmaker can blend fact and fiction to make an amusing, moving and meaningful film that transcends either documentary or fiction modes. The film is about the true story of the supposed sighting of an Ivory Billed Woodpecker in the bayou of Arkansas. Hundreds of bird watchers descended on the swamps, hoping to confirm the sighting. Alex sets the stage for his film with mostly documentary footage, and provides a sincere and intriguing look into a region transformed and polarized by this funny little bird. We meet ordinary people who were transfixed by the beauty of the bird, and hunters who are displeased that the search for the bird is keeping them from their hunting grounds. There are locals opening tourist shops selling bird trinkets, and taxidermists who claim to be able to manufacture an Ivory Billed in minutes. Into this world, Alex injects Jon e. Hyrnes (pictured below left), an actor who Alex discovered, ironically, when Johnny appeared as the subject of another documentary, "Johnny Berlin." Alex makes the wise point, "Much like the bird itself, "Woodpecker" explores the intersection of fact and fiction, manipulating our notions of documentary and narrative techniques within a tragic comedy about hope, perception, and some very very strange birds."

One of the ingenious cinematic devices in "Woodpecker" is the way Karpovsky has the character he scripted continue to develop a theme first brought up by one of the documentary characters. One of the birdwatchers who (I'm pretty sure) is real, says that the bird's cry is simply the announcement, "I am here." This phrase becomes a core leitmotif for Johnny, the lead in the film, who himself is looking for the bird in order mark to his place in birdwatching history. This lonely guy, who drolly remarks that when his wife left him "she was essentially saying 'I am not here,'" thinks that if he spots the bird he will somehow justify and signify his own existence. He wants to be famous, yes, but only in this obscure realm. His core desire, as he explains in one of his ludicrous but subtly insightful rants, is to be an integral part of the birdwatching community. He wants people to know he is there, to care that he's there, and to enable people to see this bird. So as we watch Johnny mingle with the locals and drift through the swamps, we relate to the community with his specific perspective, this strange but pure and life-affirming connection with the world.

The film raises a lot of issues about environmentalism and hunting, about dying small towns and the pitfalls of media attention, about individual isolation and community, and the way in which the issues are presented through the perspective of an entertaining and astute on-screen character effectively makes them more genuine and resonant than if we were seeing them in a purportedly neutral documentary. "Woodpecker" is a far more potent use of motion pictures than a purely factual news report of the (possible) discovery of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

So if blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction can be useful, how do we define such films? Even though I think audiences shouldn't determine their appreciation of a film by any categories or expectations, I think we need definitions in order to avoid confusion and reach a more universal understanding of these conventions, so that audience members aren't burdened by misconceptions.

There are three essential categories, and a handful of styles within them. All films are fiction, non-fiction or a hybrid. I think one of the core confusions stems from the misleading term "narrative film." Most films, whether based on imagination or fact, are narrative--they are telling a story. Non-fiction films, however, can be told in a variety of styles, which include documentary, verité, and recreation. Conventional "documentary" style would include films in which the camera records events as they unfold in real time, without the director intentionally influencing the action. Documentaries often include elements such as music, titles, and effects that did not appear directly in front of the camera, and interviews, in which the action is perhaps staged with lights, sets, and questions, but what the subject says is not shaped by the filmmaker. In contrast, verité filmmaking does not use any such non-diegetic elements or staged events.

A film like Robinson Devor's "Zoo" (pictured left) is still non-fiction, because the audio and video are all based on facts not imagination, but it is a work of non-fiction not made in a documentary style, because the voices of the subjects were re-recorded by actors, and the images were recreated with actors, lighting, set-decoration, etc. (Throughout this article, I used the terms "documentary" and "narrative" to refer to the style of filmmaking, but not the category of films.) It's interesting to note that Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" is considered a work of non-fiction (by most people), in a documentary style, even though, like "Woodpecker," it contains scripted elements and a "character" who is interacting with real people. The differences between Spurlock's and Karpovsky's films is the way in which the character is presented (Spurlock as himself; Jon e. Hymes as the fictional Johnny Neander), and the essence of the narrative (Spurlock investigating a question; Karpovsky crafting a portrait).

Within hybrid films, the distinctions of style are equally varied, including mockumentaries, faux documentaries, meta-documentaries, and fake home movies. Over lunch at Stubb's BBQ joint, I was discussing the issue with filmmakers Andrew Bujalski and Garrett Savage, and filmmaker plus "Woodpecker" co-producer Dia Sokol, and for Karpovsky's film we settled on the term "faux documentary." Although "Woodpecker" is black comedy, it shouldn't be called a "mockumentary." A "faux documentary" is a film that incorporates fiction and non-fiction, and uses the style and conventions of a doc to tell semi-fictional story. A "mockumentary," in contrast, is completely imaginary, and tends to be making fun of the characters. Further, I think most "mockumentaries" poke fun at documentary form itself, with overly-contrived sit-down interviews and obvious nods to the camera, such as the ubiquitous "don't film this" moments.

In "Woodpecker," by contrast, although one is often laughing at Johnny's naiveté and quirky obsession, he's more like a Don Quixote, the madman on a mission who is lovable and laughable but also honest, noble, and inspiring. The film treats Johnny and all the characters with warmth and respect, so it lacks the spoofing of a mockumentary.

Non-fiction and fiction "meta-documentaries" would include films that explicitly address the essence of documentary form. "Woodpecker" does not, but Karpovsky's "The Hole Story" and "A Necessary Death" both in some ways deal with the nature media and the way the act of filming events inherently affects the action. "Fake home movies," such as the infamous "Blair Witch Project," purport to verité filmmaking conventions in which the on-screen characters are filming their own lives, only the characters and actions are scripted and staged.

So, I hope all my rambling has proved helpful or at least interesting to some. It seemed interesting enough in late-night film festival conversations over eggs migas and pulled pork sandwiches. The next question, I guess, is whether I've accurately documented all that we discussed.

I almost never agree with the Academy Awards, but 3 of the 4 nominees for Best Documentary Short Film played at Rooftop Films in 2007--Freeheld (Directed by Cynthia Wade), Salim Baba (Tim Sternberg) and Sari's Mother (James Longley)--so you know I agreed with those choices.  

I'm thrilled that Brooklyn native Cynthia Wade (below, right) was given the award for her stunning and  powerful film about NJ Police Lieutenant Laurel Hester's (above, right) struggle to have her pension passed on to her domestic partner as Hester was dying of cancer. Hester's strength helped changed this discriminatory policy, and we hope that Wade's film can continue to inspire tolerance and equality.

Third Ward, TX
a documentary about art, life and real estate
Directed by Andrew Garrison
Produced by Nancy Bless & Noland Walker
Friday, Feb 1, 6:30pm
@ Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place, NYC
RSVP: www.aiany.com/calendar
FREE

Project Row Houses is the unlikely home of cutting-edge art and visionary thinking about inner-city renewal. Third Ward, TX introduces artists and neighbors who are breathing new life into their historically black community in Houston. But art, life and real estate collide when deep-pocketed developers arrive. Project Row Houses' unexpected response offers new, creative solutions.

In 2007, Rooftop Films was proud to screen Third Ward, TX as part of our INDUSTRIANCE series -- films about the changing landscape in industry, architecture, agriculture, and about the way individual lives are affected by these shifts. This film is everything we're looking to say in that series: it's a great story, told with charm and dexterity, and really has universal appeal, addressing are issues facing every city in America, including Brooklyn. Our country needs more innovative ideas like Project Row Houses. A first step is for people to see Third Ward, TX, so if you missed it on the roof, go check it out this week.

There is no film I'm more pleased and proud to see here at Sundance than "Trouble the Water," directed by Rooftop's neighbors and friends Carl Deal and Tia Lessin. Dan and I first saw a rough cut of this film about a year ago and the material was so powerful and the story so compelling we would've shown it right then. But after a year of hard work editing, the film has truly become a masterpiece.

Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott (pictured above) had just gotten a video camera a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina, and "Trouble the Water" includes their astonishing footage documenting the experience in their neighborhood, New Orleans' 9th Ward. The incredible power of the film comes directly from Kim and Scott's strength, insight, charm, and from the potent symbolism of their story, representing the story of so many people in America today--those whose lives were ruined (or lost) to Katrina, and those across the country who are being left behind by an uncaring government.

Kim and Scott are somewhat cavalier about the impending storm, and in a subtle but striking moment, we hear that Kim is a drug dealer, and that she's raising prices because she expects a shortage soon. At the same time, though, we see the early signs that Kim is a remarkably thoughtful and caring person. As she wakes her uncle Nat from a drunken stupor and tries to send him home to safety, she also turns to some nearby kids and tries to convince them not to be like Nat.

Kim's narration of these sections is both biting and poetic. "If I had wheels [a car] I'd be gone, too," Kim says to some neighbors, a direct articulation of a point later made by critics of the government's initial failure to help evacuate the city. When the rains come, and the water begins to rise, she points the camera at the wind-lashed streets while her off-camera monologue mixes prayers and bravado, fear, resignation and hope.

The flooding forces Kim and Scott into their attic, along with neighbors and children they rescue into their taller house. In an absolutely heartbreaking sequence, we see the family trapped by the water, and hear desperate 9-1-1 callers being told, point blank, that no rescue teams are coming until the flooding recedes, leaving thousands to die. But when the police and the coast guard can't or won't help, locals do: Kim and Scott's neighbor, a rival dealer named Larry Simms, swims from house to house with a large punching bag, floating women and children to safety.

Larry's astounding heroism is contrasted, later, with the actions of the men at the local Navy base. The gated base was on the highest ground in the neighborhood, was running emergency generators for power, and, because of government cutbacks, had some 500 empty apartments. But when Scott and others approached the base, they were greeted with automatic weapons, and told to leave. "What good is it to have a military if they can't serve us," Scott says ruefully. Yet in spite of this harsh treatment, Scott thanks the individual National Guardsmen he encounters who have come to help rebuild New Orleans after the storm. "I hope you don't have to go back to Iraq," Scott's friend says, "Because that ain't our war. Our war is here."

The film follows Kim and Scott for over a year as they try to rebuild their lives, and, quite literally, their city. The battle FEMA for their pitifully small relief assistance checks, struggle to start a new life in a new city, and are still looked-down upon by the very authorities meant to serve them. Rooftop alum PJ Raval shot the post-hurricane footage, and he has done a brilliant job showing the destruction of the city without fetishizing the ruins, as so many films do. His intelligent cinematography highlights the heartfelt compassion the filmmakers feel for their subjects, creating a perfect balance between Kim's footage and the "professional" footage shot later, drawing the audience into the story.

There are moments of poignant heroism and tragedy throughout, and the climax of the film is the final reveal of Kim's talents and spirit: a hip-hop song about her life that she belts out directly at the camera. She has a dynamic gift for rhythm and rhyme, and the insightful and intimate lyrics that lay her emotions bare are extraordinary. I've seen this film four times, and I still don't think I've ever been able to take a breath when Kim performs. It may be the most magnificent piece of music I've ever seen in a film.

The raw footage which the filmmakers were given to work with is incredibly compelling, but what really makes "Trouble the Water" such a significant movie is the way Deal, Lessin and editor T. Woody Richman have been able to cull from the material parallels and contradictions--the heroism and ingenuity of supposedly "bad" people; the cowardice and incompetence of those supposed to protect us--which tell a grand socio-political story through a tragic personal narrative. I've seen quite a few excellent Katrina documentaries and narratives, but none so perfectly encapsulates the human tragedy in New Orleans and across the country. I hope everyone in America can see this film. Maybe Rooftop can start by screening it on the White House lawn.

"Made in America" is a radical film about the history of African-Americans in the infamous neighborhood of South Central, Los Angeles. The film outlines the early migrations of former slaves to Los Angeles, and discusses the post-WWII boom of skilled industrial careers which brought large numbers of blacks to LA for the first time. But by the mid-1960s, industry was leaving the city, and African-Americans were losing their jobs. Young men, with little hopes of finding beneficial careers, and even barred from the Boy Scouts, began to form street gangs, looking for social and physical support. These were fighting gangs, but of a somewhat more tame nature than we know now: "You used to make an appointment for an ass-whupping," says one former gang member. "I'd beat your hairline back and knock your sideburns off."

[All quotations are paraphrased to the best of my abilities in dark-theater note-taking and memorization.]

Unwilling to accept the implicit racism and segregation in the city which their ancestors had put up with in the South, in 1967 thousands of angry blacks finally fought back in the infamous Watts riots. In the years since, many people have disparaged the riots for the looting which occurred within black neighborhoods. But one man who participated in the riots defiantly pointed out, "The looting didn't undermine anything, because we're talking about desperate people here." Hemmed in by thousands of national guardsmen during the riots, and by the racist police during the rest of their lives, given the generations of brutal oppression and total lack of economic salvation, when you hear the people tell their stories in this film, you can understand why they might loot anything from food for their children to a new color TV.

The years following the riots showed an upswing of social and political activism and a decrease in gang activity. But by the end of the 1970s, with the government reneging on promises to help and little having been accomplished, white LA hemmed South Central in even more, allowing an influx of drugs and crime. The main element of the government's "War on Drugs" and "War on Crime" is the constant harassment of African-Americans--essentially waging a war on blacks. South Central has dived deeper into despair than ever before. In the last 30 years, brutal gangs have ruled the streets. In the last 10 years alone, there have been 15,000 gang-related deaths in Los Angeles, more than in the entire history of the civil war in Northern Ireland.

Most of the people in South Central are, of course, desperate to stop the violence. Social groups are springing up--without much support from outside the community--which work to convince young black men not to join gangs, and to try to find alternatives for them, from after-school activities, to lasting careers. But without major changes to the socio-economic system in Los Angeles, the cycle is bound to renew itself.

I said that this is a radical film, and it is. But the filmmaking is not what's radical here. The fast editing and effects, the constant use of music, may in fact put many people off. And frankly, the history being told is also not radical territory: many movies, books, articles have discussed the treatment of African-Americans which has lead to such widespread alienation, depression, rage, and violence. Other truly excellent films here at Sundance, even, such as "The Order of Myths," deal in some part with these issues.

No, what is radical here is who is telling this story, and how they are saying it. The power and significance of hearing this story from the mouths of angry black men cannot be discounted. When 1 in 4 African-American males is expected to go to jail at some point in their lives, a film like this cannot be dismissed just because it seems overly flashy, or because we think we've heard it before. "What right have you got," says one former gang member in the film, speaking of the daily police stops he faced, "to ask me where I'm going, what I'm doing? It's none of your damn business. But every day I'm fed this spoonful of hatred. It's my daily diet. And I'm gonna erupt. The question is when."

If we simply say to ourselves that we've heard about the problem--and don't acknowledge the deep-seated, widespread, and justified anger represented in " Made in America"--that eruption will come again soon.  

Katrina Browne can trace her family's history back to the early American colonial days . . . back when they ran one of the largest slave trade operations in the world. What do you do with knowledge like that? It's been at least 140 years since anyone in your family owned or traded other human beings--it's not your fault. Many people in Browne's position ignore that part of their heritage (check out Margaret Brown's fascinating "Order of Myths" to see some similar denial in action), or make excuses for it. But Browne decided to contact 200 of her known relatives, and invite them on an exploration of their family's past. 9 agreed to come, and the documentary "Traces of the Trade" is one of the many results.

The family members travel from Rhode Island (where the family was based) to Ghana (where they purchased slaves) to Cuba (where they owned plantations, worked by slaves, which fueled the cycle). One might wonder what these (mostly) privileged white people, in the 21st Century, would gain from such a trip--if it would merely end up as a guilt-assuaging tour of near-forgotten horrors. But for me, the film faces down complex moral turmoil and emotional anguish, and it's all split open on the family's first day in Ghana, where they see that these atrocities are not nearly as forgotten in Africa, and by African-Americans, as they may seem in to white Americans.

One relative says, [to paraphrase] "I had always excused my ancestors, saying that they were only a product of their times, that trading slaves was just the way of the world. But after being in one of the slave prisons, where hundreds of people were held in cramped, dark cells before being shipped across the Middle Passage, now I know that's bullshit. What they were doing was evil, and they had to know it was evil, and they did it anyway. I wouldn't have thought that if I hadn't come here."

That crucial admission, and the knowledge that he could only have reached that revelation by confronting the past directly, is the moral crux of the film. By making that admission he opens up the possibility of his own complicity, acknowledging that there are aspects of this horrible past which he may be suppressing, thereby continuing the legacy of denial,  ignorance, racism. And so the 9 press on, opening themselves up to learn and understand and attempt to do the right thing. They realize that even though slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, the problems of racial inequality persist, largely because the root causes have never been fully acknowledged. In the end, they each find ways to try to make amends, and Browne and a few others begin to advocate for large-scale reparations, with the funds earmarked for social programs that might help end the systems of racism and inequality.  

It could be easy to dismiss this family's journey as a limited example, relevant only to them and other direct descendents of slave-owners. But such a dismissal would avoid the important point that Browne's film makes: morality cannot be complacent. We all have beliefs--we're against the wars in the Middle East, we fear for the environment, we're outraged by the myriad inequalities in our society, for example--but are we doing enough? If we rationalize away our inactivity, our morals will crumble and fail. At a certain point, we have to examine at our excuses and simply say, "That's bullshit." It's time to do something.

Towards the middle of The Linguists, Seth Kramer, Daniel Miller and Jeremy Newberger's documentary about two adventurous, globe trotting academics, the subjects wander into a small village deep in the heart of India and find that they have stumbled upon a huge celebration of some sort--apparently a wedding. The entire village is singing, chanting and celebrating with hundreds of women locking arms together and swaying about in unison as the men dance joyously around them. The villagers spot the academics and the film crew and immediately invite them all into the center of the celebration. The two professors gladly join in and the bemused villagers embrace their visitors, dancing with them for hours and bringing them drinks and food. Linguist David Harrison says later, "you should get out and dance with the people. That is the easiest way to learn a language quickly."

Scenes such as these make The Linguists an easy film to enjoy. The two travellers featured in the film (Harrison and his partner Gregory Anderson) cheerfully venture from one remote location on the planet to another in a sometimes frenzied attempt to document the worlds most endangered languages before they disappear forever. They estimate that the world is losing languages at the shocking rate of one every couple of weeks, and it is obvious that the rapid modernization of some of the larger third-world and developing nations is causing this rate to accelerate exponentially. In villages and small towns in Siberia, Bolivia and India, indigenous populations are succumbing to political and economic pressures and abandoning their traditional customs and languages in order to fit in with society at large and overcome isolation and disenfranchisement. The doc was shot over the course of more than five years and culled from hundreds upon hundreds of hours of footage shot on five continents. There are at least a half dozen fantastically bizarre moments in the film, including a live guinea pig sacrifice, and as dreary as some of the communities they visit may be, the film maintains a light touch and a buoyant sense of adventure, even as the protagonists squirm their way out of a series of near-disasters.

Focusing more on the travels and ideas of the two main subjects, The Linguists presents a pleasantly objective look at the issues it addresses. Anderson and Harrison have a youthful energy about them, and though they clearly lament the accelerating rate of language loss, they just as certainly take great pleasure in their adventures and exploits. Even when things go wrong, you can tell they are excited to have overcome such strange and varied obstacles (at least after the fact), and there is a sparkle in their eyes as they recount their problems with gift giving in India or the various stomach ailments that befall them in South America.

My only real complaint with the film--and I would barely classify it as a complaint--is that the film fails to shed very much light on the real motivations of the two linguists. In the Q and A following the film the two of them were asked why they took such an interest in languages from such a young age, but the two both responded that they had no idea why they were so obsessed with exotic tongues and their preservation. Watching them travel through warlord-controlled areas to track down the last remaining speakers of ancient languages, it is easy to tell that they embark on these quests more for the sake of adventure than to correct some wrong in the world. I, for one, would have liked for the film to have addressed this element of their personalities more fully. But the film played quite well to a sold out audience, and as the clock crept past 1:15 AM audience members were still posing multi-part questions to the subjects and directors. The Linguists is a fun and fascinating journey, and it was clear that everyone at the late-night screening was appreciative for the opportunity to tag along.