Sundance DocSource

What is it about film that you are the most passionate about? In other words, why film and why documentary?

There are so many aspects of filmmaking and media-making that interest me. Foremost, the venue to tell stories that are largely ignored or not heard in mainstream media or mainstream cinema. I essentially view filmmaking as one of many tools for activism. It is an amazing platform in which you can engage, inform and entertain all the while conveying an important message or story.

Documentaries are particularly exciting to me because it is an opportunity to document an important story or event in our history. It provides a space for people to be apart of recording this history and important issues in an interesting and visual way, creating an opportunity for history to be told through diverse voices and told in non-linear ways.

I am also attracted to film because I find it hard to articulate in a linear and cohesive way on paper. For me, documentaries are congruent to non-fiction poetry. I do not have to write word for word about a certain event, yet I can capture and create images and put them together to get across the visceral emotion that will in turn be translated by each viewer through their own experiences and lives. There is something very holistic about this format of storytelling.

Lastly, filmmaking is just plain fun and exciting!

When did you decide to make The Fire This Time?

I was first interested in the case of what later became known as the NJ4, when it first hit the news. I read every outrageous article about that night. I went to community meetings where people asked questions such as, ‘What do we do when attacked? What do we do when the victims are the accused? How do we protect ourselves when the police won’t? So, for the first two years I was interested in this case and active around it, on and off, writing letters, fundraisers, things like that. The idea of a documentary came up pretty quickly and there was a “film collective” formed. I went to one meeting, but was disillusioned and unsure if it was the most productive way to be involved at the point. I very much felt a documentary should be done on this case, but originally didn’t think I should be the one to tell it. Then, two years later, four of the women’s appeals were coming up and no film had begun. I started fishing around a bit. Someone made a comment to me stating that, ‘’This case is not a matter of public concern, and that it was in fact an isolated incident.’ I decided to do the film right then and there, and never looked back.

If you had/have a kid that told you he or she wanted to be a filmmaker, what would you tell them?

Run like hell!

Actually, I think it is extremely important, especially for youth, to get involved in filmmaking. The more voices added to the world of filmmaking, the better! I would tell them to study everything they can, determine distinctively what type of filmmaker they want to be and why. And then realize what they can bring to a film that will make it new and captivating.

As we reach the end of the decade and look back on the changes that have occurred in the world of documentary film, can you identify a film or an event that changed the way you thought about documentary?

I think it is exciting to view a documentary film, particularly one that is addressing a social issue, not as a stand-alone medium, but as one of multiple tools to increase visibility, awareness and understanding.

There is not necessarily just a film that has changed the way I think about documentaries, but the way in which documentary films relationship to activism by partnering with other technologies is continuously evolving. For example organizations such as Brave New Films, which creates numerous short documentary web-videos that are distributed regularly along with coinciding campaigns with instructions on how to become active. They are not the only organization partnering documentaries with investigative journalism by utilizing viral marketing as their main outlet, but they are an example of filmmakers being dedicated not solely to the art of documentaries, but the documentaries themselves are dedicated to action in a very public, pro-active and conscious-raising way.

One thing that separates documentaries from narrative films is the opportunities for wider audiences to see them. Beyond the few television stations that are dedicated to broadcasting documentaries, filmmakers are increasingly creating new ways to get their films out there, particularly if their doc is there to incite social justice or action. To me, if documentary filmmakers don’t utilize other forms of technologies then their film has much less of a chance to be seen, which, ultimately is the point.

I think that documentaries partnering with various forms of technology are an exciting way to expand not just being a filmmaker, but a media-maker.

It’s easy to keep going when things are going well. What keeps you going when things are difficult?

Its sort of a strange question to me, ‘what keeps you going when things are difficult,’ for me the whole motivation to keep going when things are difficult, is that they will get easier if you keep working at it. Its seems a lot more foreign to me to be creating a documentary with the ease of ‘’things going well.’ Maybe that is apart of the thrill of it.