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Interview with Ginger Gentile

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TAKING ON IVY LEAGUE: INTERVIEW WITH ‘EXCLUSION U’ DIRECTOR GINGER GENTILE

Activist director sets sights on elite universities

 

Ginger Gentile/Core Media

 

Spin the wheel and land on a current hot-button topic that incites anger on either side of the political spectrum and puts grass-roots activists on a collusion course with powerful, moneyed institutions: gun control, abortion, transgender intolerance, immigration, agenda-based news organizations, and of course evergreen racial dynamics.

Roiling in the margins awaits another issue destined for the center stage: the shocking and permissive financial shenanigans of institutions of higher education. Tangential issues—student loan forgiveness, the influence of “woke” progressive professors, the protests of ultraconservative guest speakers—already are popping up in headlines across the nation.

Ginger Gentile’s new documentary, Exclusion U, launches headlong into the controversies, hidden and no-so, of how universities, particularly the Ivy League, sit on billions of dollars while refusing to expand enrollments. It’s a topic ready-made for Gentile, who describes herself as an activist documentary filmmaker who prefers to take on “issues that people don’t want to talk about.”

Her previous documentary, Erasing Family (2022), explores trauma children of divorce suffer when a parent is erased from their lives. That film was financed through a crowdfunding campaign. Gentile also produced several independent films during her post-college stint in Argentina. Her experiences as a Jewish person living in Buenos Aires may very well inspire a future documentary about Jews in Latin America, she says.

When it comes to scandals within the corridors of higher education, Gentile, an Ivy Leaguer herself, knows of what she speaks. As a student at Columbia University, she had a love-hate relationship with her alma mater.

“The education was amazing,” Gentile recalls, but she didn’t cotton to some of the same institutional issues she takes on in her film. “I was always protesting. My time at Columbia informed my outlook on how Ivy League functions.”

Gentile’s film takes on myriad issues: economics, race, politics, legacy benefactors, beleaguered financial aid efforts, intentional exclusivity and even gentrification. But the centerpiece is certainly the issue of endowments. Exclusion U carefully lays out how Ivy League institutions hoard billions of dollars through financial set-asides. The endowments grow exponentially into a largess that rarely find its way back to those who need it most, low-income students and the communities that surround and support the universities.

“I always knew that schools had endowments,” Gentile says. But the extent to which donations and assets are funneled away was staggering to discover. “Everything is public, but not widely known. All these things they do are legal,” she adds.

In addition to students, Gentile’s documentary has many former educators, administrators and admission officials as talking heads. Was there a concern of upsetting the Ivy League culture?

“I only interviewed people who wanted to talk,” she said. “There was fear from students from Harvard compared to other universities. Harvard is such a powerful institution.”

She adds, “Everything is fact-checked. They may not like it but it’s all true.”

Looking to the future, Gentile has her eyes on the subject of math.

“I’d love to do a film about people’s fear and hatred of mathematics,” she says. “Also, I have an interest in the Manifest Movement,” as well as the previously mentioned exploration of Jewish people living in Latin America.

What does she hope viewers will take away from the film?

“That there are schools with a lot of money and power because we allowed them to have those things,” she says. “It’s time for us to do something about it.”

Exclusion U is produced by Veronica Nickel (Moonlight) and includes interviews with Davarian Baldwin (In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower), Tressie McMillan Cottom (Lower Ed), Anthony Jack (The Privileged Poor), Jeff Selingo (Who Gets In and Why) Dan Golden (The Price of Admission) Richard V. Reeves (Brookings Institution), Lauren Rivera (Northwestern University), and Deja Foxx (influencer/staffer for Vice President Kamala Harris).

The film will be released on June 23, and will be available on various on-demand platforms including iTunes, Amazon, and GooglePlay.

Official site here

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quick Flix Hit

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Cleveland International Film Festival

China Love (2018)

Unrated

Media Stockade

China Love begins by fastidiously documenting the phenomenon of elaborate pre-wedding photography in modern-day China. We’re introduced to dozens of brides-to-be shot in unbelievable gowns surrounded in unbelievable settings. We witness elaborate underwater setups, shots where couples are made to seem like they are floating in air, and every kind of fantasy made real. The film immediately springs to life, aided by bouncing editing, upbeat tempos—I thought of the kinetic energy of box-office smash Crazy Rich Asians.

Soon, through and around its steady stream of beaming brides and dapper grooms, a richer film flows. The contemporary flash is contrasted with 40 years earlier, when marriages were arranged and nondescript. Elderly couples reflect on a time when it was unthinkable to allow such grandiose celebrations of marriage. They don’t speak with outrage, mind you, but of sadness or regret that their weddings lack such … romance? Fantasy?

Directed by Olivia Martin-McGuire, herself a professional photographer, China Love suggests a better understanding of Chinese culture might be gleaned through this look into how fantasies are served through the ritual of elaborate pre-wedding photos. In addition to elder couples reminiscing on a bygone era, Martin-McGuire documents young Shanghai and Beijing couples caught up in the pre-wedding-photo frenzy. Some do it to walk lockstep with this contemporary trend, others because of pressure to honor tradition.

In the documentary we meet Allen Shi, the young entrepreneur who has ridden this industry into the Billionaire Boys Club. It’s an industry that flourishes in China to the tune of $80 billion. Allen has a stable of photographers, clothing makers, makeup artists and set designers who churn out movie-quality pre-wedding photo fantasies. Allen, with his American personal assistant Eric in tow, speaks the usual billionaire bromides of how anyone can have his level of success if they work as hard as he works. Allen, though, is more than an outsized stereotype. He’s come from stark poverty, and despite his humble beginnings, has amassed 7,000 employees and more than 300 studios across seven countries. Eric nods approvingly. Eric had originally planned on living in China for a year. His connection with Allen put him on a five-year trajectory that shows no signs of slowing down. Is it ironic that Eric chases his American Dream by peddling American fantasies in China?

Later, we learn of Allen’s disturbing and exacting standards when he fines employees for the slightest deviations from his formula of “perfect” pre-wedding photos. If a hair is out of place, if skin tone is not just right, if lighting is off, there are financial consequences—up to dismissal. It’s startling to see the nitpicking when very similar photos are place side by side. Big business means tough standards, I guess. But it’s more than financial success; Allen’s reputation is at stake.

We also meet Kim, one of Allen’s senior photographers. The often-giggling Kim is a skilled cameraman on autopilot. He knows his stuff, knows his clients and the market, and—along with the upscale capital provided by Allen’s deep pockets—delivers with precision.

The director’s experiences as a photographer and her apparent love of China inform the film with it astonishing look. Beautiful vistas abound. The Shanghai skyline with its regal, futuristic-looking skyscrapers; the bustling China streets, the corning stores and restaurants, clothesline between apartments, beachfront glory. As her film goes on, Martin-McGuire digs deeper into the material.

Eventually, we get a peek into “marriage markets,” where desperate “aging” women are paired up with potential spouses. In China, unmarried women run the risk of isolation. Men are advised not to become engage without at least owning an apartment. The pressures of matrimony are tremendous. In one sad interlude we see the divorced mother of featured bride Viona. The older woman, Han Pan, regards an elegant photograph of herself in a wedding dress. Han Pan had the photo taken after divorce, as single woman, wanting her keepsake of the fantasy. Late in the documentary, there is an echo of this moment as her now-married daughter Viona laments returning to China from her post-wedding life in Australia because of a lack of job opportunities for her husband. Viona seems to fear becoming her mother.

I can’t say enough about the photography of the film. Despite countless depictions of pre-wedding photos, the film’s look is forever beguiling and never seems redundant. The director (and her subjects) keep coming up with ways to dazzle us with costuming, set design and lighting.

Through it all there’s something more important emerging in the margins of the film. The older couples recall limited resources, and censured speech. The younger couples hardly seem to live in a time of restrictions. Things within their grasp couldn’t be consider before the Cultural Revolution. Yet, now, they can have their imagination’s and heart’s desires—provided they have the financial resources. It’s interesting that even though the older couples mostly admit they didn’t marry for romance and pageantry, the younger couples don’t really seem enveloped in romance either. There’s a sense of securing stature, of relieving pressures placed on them to marry—but no real efforts for the sake of romance.

A marvelous sequence late in the film involves elderly couples having an opportunity to take the pre-wedding photos they were never able to have. Seeing an 80-year-old woman don makeup, a crown and an off-the-shoulder dress is truly moving. The husbands too find themselves in the makeup chair and rendered dapper in nice suits! And in a moment, the importance of the pageantry of putting on elegant dresses and tuxedos transcends all the expensive glamor that has come before it.

China Love is an oddly compelling—and sometimes sad—look at the culture and commodity of marriage frozen in moments of unrelenting photographic beauty.

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Talking with Director Sanjay Rawal

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RUNNING TOWARD ENLIGHTENMENT

Sanjay Rawal’s documentary on grueling race reflects deeper issues

Sounding as much like a philosopher as a filmmaker, Sanjay Rawal intones that “running reduces you to your feet and your breathing.”  The documentarian is also a book editor, activist and, unsurprisingly, a runner. “Running becomes a deep, meaningful experience,” he says.

Rawal’s latest film project, 3100: Run and Become, is a synthesis of many of his beliefs—spiritual enlightenment, racial diversity, health-consciousness. The film documents the lives and efforts of participants in New York’s Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile race, the longest certified road race in the world.

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF 3100: RUN AND BECOME

 It’s a grueling race: the runners must run 60 miles a day, for as long as 52 days, around a half-mile loop in New York, totaling 3,100 miles. They don’t take up the challenge for bragging rights or trophies. “People do it for the best reasons,” Rawal says. “I wanted to explore it.”

Indeed, in watching Run and Become, we see the race promoted as one that leaves its participants “changed.” One of the documentary’s subjects, Finnish runner Ashprihanal Aalto, states his goal as using the race to become a better person.

It’s not unlike the way Rawal has used his career and geography to become a better person. Growing up in Oakland, Calif., the Indian-American son of a tomato breeder, Rawal was introduced to the agricultural industry. It informed his award-winning 2014 documentary Food Chains. Despite living in Oakland, Rawal has spent the last 20 years in Queens. He has a strong tie to the New York City borough’s multiethnicity.

“Queens exemplifies ‘oneness.’ It is recognized as one of the most diverse places, with 170 languages are spoken here,” he says. “There’s a wide variety of the human spirit.”

A critical documentary that shaped him as a director is 2008’s Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The film features Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, who along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman, received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to improve women’s rights.

“The film showed me that documentaries can have deep impact,” he recalls.

But it was an interest in famed Indian spiritualist and runner Sri Chinmoy that truly inspired Rawal to make the transfer from California to New York. The late Chimney founded the race, in its 20th year at the time of the filming. Chinmoy himself had been a weightlifter and runner. His mind-body philosophical outlook inspired Rawal to tap into his own sense of spirituality, community, health and competitiveness. During his career he’s worked with not only Chinmoy (on a book and a film), but with South African theologian and activist Desmond Tutu. Rawal himself has a background in human rights activism, including women’s issues, where he served on the first men’s committee for V-Day. Rawal was even a semi-competitive runner.

“What was my place in world? I found that through Sri,” he says. “But it wasn’t until this film that I truly focused on physically understanding the human body.” When Rawal met film subject Shaun Martin, a Navajo descendant, “it really began to sink in that running is a prayer,” he says. In the film, Martin’s run across the desert is a spiritual one.

Rawal’s film takes us beyond the city blocks of the race and on a more expansive journey. The documentary—produced by Illumine Group, shot by Sean Kirby and edited by Alex Meillier—invites us to see the Great Good of running as the film reveals its impact across the globe.

In Africa, original tribes ran to hunt, in other words, they ran for their very survival. Bushmen connect hunting and running and spirituality. In Japan, Buddhist monks circle a mountain in search of enlightenment, undertaking a task not unlike the Self-Transcendence runners. Miles and miles of movement and prayer, totaling a seven-year challenge for the monks. On an Arizona reservation, a Navajo descendant undertakes a ceremonial run to his family’s ancestral home 110 miles away. We see a link between running and spiritually as the man prays for strength and guidance before he proceeds.

Despite a strong spiritual subtext beneath the race narrative, Rawal doesn’t see Run and Become as a message film. It’s not the traditional “talking head” interview type of work, he says. “I see it as more of an art film about running.”

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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3100: Run and Become (2018)

Unrated

Illumine Group

We meet Finnish runner Ashprihanal Aalto in his sparse home eating Ramon noodles right out of the pot. The 45-year-old paperboy is soon to compete in New York’s Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile race, the longest certified road race in the world. As the window for running such marathons is beginning to close for him, Aalto states his goal as using the race to become a better person. Indeed, the race is promoted as one that leaves its participants “changed.”

The man’s idol is famed Indian spiritualist and runner Sri Chinmoy, who saw “no barrier between spirituality and athletics.” The late Chinmoy founded the race, in its 20th year at the time of the filming.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SANJAY RAWAL

The participants are an array of accomplished runners from across the global. Aalto himself is a top-ranked runner who set the record at last year’s race. Now, about this race: the runners must run 60 miles a day, for as long as 52 days, around a half-mile loop in New York, totaling 3,100 miles.

We immediately become aware of the small number of competitors, a dozen, surely a sign of how daunting this run must be. What we aren’t aware of is how Run and Become will take us beyond these city blocks, beyond this race and on a more expansive journey.

The documentary dispenses helpful factoids via screen text: volunteers provide food and medical assistance; runners must consume more than 10,000 calories daily; the race course is open from 6 a.m. to midnight each day. Chinmoy’s legacy is on vivid display. His portrait and posters can’t be missed. He’s quoted in voiceover throughout the film. Meditation is encouraged as much as staying hydrated. A volunteer choir along the route sings of “give and take,” “never quitting,” and “being brave.”

The film is essentially a day-by-day diary for some runners and a peek into some of their lives. Running’s presented as more than a hobby for these folks. It’s more of a deep dive within themselves, a meditation. Runners are seeking meaning and connection, it seems. “Pray through your feet, your breath,” they are told.

Director Sanjay Rawal’s film utilizes wonderful camera movement at ground level, sometimes in lockstep with the runners. The summer days in the city’s concrete jungle are brightly captured: trees between the sidewalks, fenced-in basketball courts, caution barricades and parked cars and buses. Later we’ll see equally impressive camerawork (by Sean Kirby) on African plains, in a Japanese temple and mountains and across exquisite Arizona deserts. Michael A. Levine’s music is understated and blends wonderfully with crosscutting between various locales; it puts the film on a grander scale.

Run and Become invites us to see the Great Good of running as the film reveals its impact across the globe.

In Africa, original tribes ran to hunt, in other words, they ran for their very survival. Bushmen connect hunting and running and spirituality. Once hunting is banned in their indigenous lands, it triggers a conflict for their way of life. Now the Bushmen feel forced to rely upon the government for survival. This is a blow not only to a way of life, but to a sense of sovereignty and dignity.

In Japan, Buddhist monks circle a mountain in search of enlightenment, undertaking a task not unlike the Self-Transcendence runners. Miles and miles of movement and prayer, totaling a seven-year challenge for monks like Ajari Mitsunaga. For Mitsunaga, the path was chosen, the hardships accepted and now he hands his wisdom down to others.

On an Arizona Navajo reservation, we learn of how thousands of Native American children were forced to attend government boarding schools. The children were taught America history that was not their own and not allow to speak their native language. A Navajo descendant Shaun Martin undertakes a ceremonial run from the school to his family’s ancestral home 110 miles away. The run honors his father and others who tried to escape the school. Again, we see a link between running and spiritually as Martin prays for strength and guidance before he proceeds.

Our star, Aalto, is a titan in an unassuming package. He looks plain, he speaks and acts plainly. It is running that defines him. He is described by an admirer as a “bird,” “tiny,” but “physically and mentally” the best for such a task. The film offers a brief and sweet moment between Aalto and his sister in which we come to understand the runner’s motivations.

The hazards of Self-Transcendence are real. We are concerned for Austrian cellist Shamita, who is known for pushing herself beyond her limits. Years ago, she barely survived a difficult marathon. Her daughter worries about the Self-Transcendence. Rightfully so. It’s difficult to watch the effects of the run overwhelm her physical—if not mental—capabilities. We see how the run takes its toll on other participants. Too exhausted to eat, physically rundown, emotionally broken. We are impressed by their commitment and concerned about what they’re doing to their bodies and minds. But they seem driven by a purpose higher than physical worries.

A masterful montage sequence links images of Japanese countryside, an African sunset and Martin’s run through the sprawling Arizona desert (drone photography is especially captivating here), while the soundtrack is filled with Shamita’s perfect cello.

A bit of suspense arrives during the final laps of the race as the gap between the top two runners narrows to a single mile. In the end there is no prize money; of course not. No one runs Self-Transcendence for financial rewards.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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Capturing the Flag (2018)

Unrated

Volunteer voter protection worker, Brooklyn-based entertainment lawyer and producer of Capturing the Flag, Laverne Berry. Photo credit: Nelson Walker III

New York attorney Laverne Berry, saw something at an election polling site years ago that jolted her from her comfortable contribution of driving people to the polls. When one of her charges had trouble walking, a janitor on site took it upon himself to use a pushcart and chair to get the woman to the polling booth.

“If he could do that on a day when that’s not his job,” Berry determined, “I can take some time off every election to do something.”

In Capturing the Flag, Berry and three other “voter protection volunteers” are documented during the lead-up to and through the 2016 election from their on-the-ground perspective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, polling districts. Director Anne de Mare’s fascinating and sober documentary fights an undercurrent of foregone conclusion, but provides pointed insights into our election system and the soldiers who take up the challenges of making votes count.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ANNE DE MARE

De Mare and her cast navigate subject matter that should be important to not simply those still distraught about the results of the 2016 election; setting aside partisanship to fairly critique our voting process should matter to every citizen.

Joining Berry on her quest is volunteer Steven Miller, an attorney and longtime friend. Miller, a white man, and Berry, a black woman, communicate with an ease certainly found in lifelong friends. En route to North Carolina we meet volunteer Claire Wright, an attorney and recent naturalized citizen. This is her first U.S. election and her first visit to North Carolina. Writer Trista Delamere Mitchell eagerly joins the group on the ground.

De Mare, along with animator Sean Donnelly, use visual aids to provide an “election day” sense of urgency to the documentary. A graphic counter along the bottom of the frame tick off months, then days, then hours before election results.

Almost immediately the team runs into an ongoing controversy at an early voting site in Fayetteville. The local NAACP has accused the state board and three county election boards of illegally removing thousands of people from voter rolls. The purge, they say, is primarily affecting voters of color.

Berry laments the inconsistent voting rules and methods from state to state. It makes protecting voter rights “daunting.”

A 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidated Shelby County v. Holder, a provision of the Voter Rights Act of 1965. That 2013 decision limited supervision by the Justice Department over states that had demonstrated relentless efforts to curtail black people from voting. Within weeks of the ruling, several states began establishing new voting restrictions—more stringent photo ID laws, limits on third-party voter registration, limited rights for those with past criminal convictions, shuttering polling locations across states. The very day of the decision, Texas began efforts to redraw boundaries for congressional and state house districts.

We watch as Berry bravely heads alone into the breach—a polling site in an all-white community littered with yard signs for Republican candidates. Yet, she reminds herself that her mission is to insure fair voting, regardless of party affiliation. She is regarded with caution at first, but her eagerness to help, earnestness and time pushes her through resistance. Miller, at different polling site, faces similar challenges from black people.

For a time, then, the film becomes a microcosm of the passions, absurdities and contradictions of the U.S. election system. A young polling judge at a precinct is initially curt and forceful with Miller, who’s assisting folks outside the polling site. The young man regards the older one as an outsider, a troublemaker. But as the day goes on, and both men doggedly undertake their responsibilities, they seem to accept each other’s roles. The strident young judge in fact, is revealed to may have overreacted due to the stresses of heading up a polling site for the first time. In the end, Miller joins him inside the now-closed precinct as polling officials search for an errant ballot.

The team’s journey is intercut with efforts from the local branch of the NAACP, including a press conference by chapter President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Barber and others are pushing back against subtle and blatant attempts to suppress the minority vote.

Amid these early voting machinations, President Obama visits Fayetteville for a rally that for me stood as a contrast to the divisive rallies that have sadly become the norm. When an elderly man wearing a military uniform riles up the crowd with his Trump sign, Obama playfully admonishes the agitated crowd and reminds it that, 1) free speech should be respected in the U.S., 2) veterans deserve our respect, 3) elderly people should be respected as well. He famously concludes: “Don’t boo, vote!”

Meanwhile, foreign-born Wright registers disappointment, having recalled practicing law in post- Apartheid South Africa when that country’s courts looked to U.S. law precedents as a guide to building South Africa’s new constitution. “I thought that the U.S now, after the civil rights movement, was an egalitarian society,” she says. “Living here has made me realize it is not at all.” It is crushing to watch Wright trying to help an African-American woman, having been referred to a third precinct and still not able to cast a ballot, who throws up her hands and says she has to get back to work instead.

I like that de Mare allows her subjects to display their professional and ethical commitment to their tasks, while reminding us that they are also citizens, party affiliates, who care not just about voters but the outcome of the election. Since we already know the fateful outcome of the 2016 race, it’s with some dread (or joy, if Trump was your guy) that we relive the day while Berry and the team face it for the first time: the certainty that the math is in Hillary Clinton’s favor, the surprise that Donald Trump is doing better than predicted, the rising suspicion that the calculus was wrong, that working-class sentiment was misjudged; the shock and disbelief of the results.

We’ve walked with Miller as he remained level-headed and professional throughout the day. Not until the night of election results, when he explodes into anger, confusion and disappointment, do we see the partisan side he’d left off the field while attending to his duties.

De Mare, an award-winning director (The Homestretch, 2014), has taken us back to a fateful moment in U.S. history to allow us to relive it at the ground level and in personal terms. With cases before the courts (including our top court) on issues of gerrymandering, alleged attempts to manipulate the upcoming census, as well as looming critical midterm elections, de Mare’s film couldn’t be timelier.

Capturing the Flag has its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2018.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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Maynard (2017)

Unrated

Auburn Avenue Films

On the night Barack Obama was elected president of United State of America I remember looking at my sleeping infant daughter while processing my unique place in time where I stood at an exact moment of before and after. The morning before, I awoke in a country in which it was improbable to think the 44th person elected to the highest position in the land could be anything but white and male. The morning after, my daughter and I awoke in a country that would be lead for the next eight years by someone who looked like us.

I thought of this moment as I watched Maynard, a documentary of the first black mayor of a major southern city. The parallel of Maynard Jackson’s and Barack Obama’s moments certainly isn’t lost to history or the filmmakers.

Helmed by editor-turned-director Sam Pollard, Maynard is refreshingly uncluttered, a straight through-line depicting Jackson’s early academic successes; his civil rights linage (his grandfather was famed movement leader John Wesley Dobbs); his foray into law and politics; his rise; his retirement; his comeback and untimely death. To be sure, we get standard archival footage, still photographs, newspaper headlines and talking heads, but the film vibrates with a sense of the era—its roiling racial politics, its music, the clothes.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SAM POLLARD

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr., tall and broad, uses carefully chosen words, commands audiences with his articulate speeches and forthright assertions. Sound familiar? He graduated from Morehouse Collage at 18 and eventually earned a law degree. Although he was delivered an early election defeat in his run for the U.S. Senate, Jackson dusted himself off and become vice mayor of Atlanta, eventually repositioning himself for a mayoral run. Maynard offers a unique look into southern politics. As vice mayor, Jackson’s run for mayor pit him against incumbent and colleague Sam Massell. It was a bruising affair that ended with Jackson’s election as mayor of Atlanta. That Massell is still alive and Pollard gets him on camera to relitigate the race is astonishing. Some resentment bubbles up right before our eyes.

There’s fantastic footage of a portly Jackson in the ring with Muhammad Ali for a promotional boxing match. News footage and interviews of the Atlanta child murders that rocked Jackson’s second term remain potent. And Jackson’s legacy-burnishing renovation of the Atlanta airport into an international hub truly speaks to his lasting accomplishments.

Of course the path to legend can be littered with sacrifices: a divorce, a seeming disconnect from his only son, health issues and political disillusionment.

The documentary brings in heavyweights to tell the tale—famed mayors Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin, civil rights authorities Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, former President Bill Clinton and attorney Vernon Jordan—but it’s the voices of Jackson’s family that wring true intimacy from the proceedings. The Jackson family brought the project to Pollard and is well-represented here. Daughters Elizabeth, Brooke, Valerie and Alexandra, son Maynard III, widow Valerie and former wife Burnella all add layers to Maynard’s portrayal.

Son Maynard III is presented with sad dignity; we infer a boy trying to exist in the shadows of a mythic-like father, and a man who has fought his demons to arrive as a proud survivor. Jackson’s daughters, beautiful each, project strength and intelligence and yet, sweet vulnerability as daddy’s girls. The women who were married to Jackson provide a dignity that elucidates their critical roles in supporting Jackson’s destiny.

When we arrive at the details of Jackson’s final hours, the documentary gains power. The scene in which the news of Maynard’s untimely death reaches each of his family members is masterfully filmed and edited.

In a time of political calculations of what a legacy means and of whether it can be undone by successors, Pollard’s film assuredly reminds us that the true caretakers of a legacy can keep the flame burning.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Interview with Director Sam Pollard

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BUILDING ON LEGACIES: INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SAM POLLARD

Editor-turned-director’s latest work features late Mayor Maynard Jackson

Sam Pollard on set

There’s something synchronistic about a trailblazing African-American mayor, who paved the way for a trailblazing African-American president, having his story told by a talented editor-director, who himself came up through the influence of a legendary African-America director.

Pollard, left, and Spike Lee with their Emmys

Sam Pollard’s timely documentary Maynard, then, is an exemplar of black legacy all around—in front of and behind the camera. We read frequent reports of the current presidential administration on a quest to erase the legacy of the country’s first black president. Pollard’s film asserts that Barack Obama’s legacy, in part, is a continuation of strides began from folks like Maynard Jackson.

“Listen,” Pollard says, “looking at Maynard in hindsight is a breath of fresh air.”

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF MAYNARD

Maynard Jackson Jr.’s story is long overdue for the screen. In 1973, the charismatic, unflappable politician was elected mayor of the city of Atlanta, becoming first African-American to lead a major southern city. Jackson held the post for three terms and by the time of his death had changed the course of politics.

Maynard Jackson

Pollard’s film illuminates a political terrain fraught with racial discord, political in-fighting, complex alliances, both black and white. Sound familiar to today’s politics? And yet, Maynard inspires hope. Our nation’s been through this before, it says, and we have come through the other side.

Even before becoming a longtime editor of the films of director Spike Lee, Pollard had a winding career in editing. Before Lee, Pollard spent 20 years doing low-budget work with vanguards like the late Bill Gunn. But working with Lee for more than 20 years has provided Pollard with “a sense of how to tell a story,” he says. “Being an editor has had a very positive impact on my directorial career.”

The Emmy winner (his “Slavery By Another Name”), four-time Peabody Award winner and Academy Award nominee has produced films on playwright August Wilson, singer Marvin Gaye and author Zora Neale Hurston.

In Maynard, Pollard’s command of his material—with assistance from his editor Jeff Cooper and cameraman Henry Adebonojo—is on display. The documentary vibrates with a sense of the era—its roiling racial politics, its music, the clothes. Maynard Jackson, tall and broad, uses carefully chosen words, commands audiences with his articulate speeches and forthright assertions. Sound familiar? We see Jackson, successful in high school and college, grandson of famed civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs, primed for greatness.

There would be stumbles along the way. Facing defeat after a run for the Georgia senate, a young Jackson dusted himself off, and turned the experience into a successful campaign for mayor.

Pollard uses archival footage to great effect. I was gobsmacked by footage of a portly Jackson in the ring with Muhammad Ali for a promotional boxing match. News footage and interviews of the Atlanta child murders that rocked Jackson’s second term remain potent. And Jackson’s legacy-burnishing renovation of the Atlanta airport into an international hub truly speaks to his lasting accomplishments.

Pollard with Shirley Franklin, former mayor of Atlanta

But it’s the talking heads that give weight to Pollard’s film and Jackson’s story. Famed mayors Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin. Civil rights heavy-hitters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Former President Bill Clinton. Attorney Vernon Jordan. Pollard gets them to speak personally about Jackson. The voices of Jackson’s family wring true intimacy from the proceedings. Jackson’s son, daughters, ex-wife and widow bring the Jackson legacy into focus. Their contributions went beyond speaking in front of the camera, though. It was the Jackson clan that brought Maynard to life. Pollard says he was sought out by the family to bring the story of the late mayor to the screen.

“The family reached out to me,” he says. “They were looking for someone to help produce a film about their father.”

The family understood its patriarch’s place in history. A quote by Jackson’s daughter Bunnie Jackson Ransom—“He was the Obama before Obama”—has been used in some promotional materials.

Maynard was not a perfect mayor. He belatedly contended with a corrupt cabinet member, and seemed to lose his zest for politics during his apprehensive third term. Pollard intended to create a full portrait of the man.

“The easy part would be to not have complexity,” he says. “I wanted a very rounded perspective.”

Bill Clinton on Maynard Jackson

To that end we see former mayors still touched Maynard’s influence, Bill Clinton’s eyes brighten as he relates a Jackson anecdote as only he can. And the scene in which the news of Maynard’s untimely death reaches each of his family members is masterfully filmed and edited.

The documentary gained from what Pollard calls the “benefit of living witnesses.” The film boasts participation from other trailblazers of the era.

“They are still alive. All these former mayors touched by him,” he says. “You can hear directly from people who pass on his legacy.”

Up next for Pollard is a feature film on the life of Bert Williams, a black entertainer from the Vaudeville era. The Bahamas-born Williams rose to become one of the most popular comedians of his day. Pollard’s film, sure to be as provocative as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, is in the fundraising phase.

Maynard debuts Nov. 16 at DOC in NYC.

Official site here

Sam Pollard’s filmography here

 

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Age of Consequences Interview

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DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER SEES PURPOSE IN DIRE WARNINGS

Sophie Robinson, executive producer of The Age of Consequences/PF Films

It is not your father’s global warming documentary, or even your former vice president’s. The Age of Consequences is a stark analysis of the faltering care-taking of the planet and of the resulting horrific consequences that have occurred and that lie ahead.

Director Jared P. Scott’s film positions itself outside the expected framework of liberal lecturing and scientists’ admonishments as it reaches for a broader audience by using hard-hitting visuals, unnerving data and, most critically, support from military experts. To be sure, its tone is bleak. While introducing the doc at a screening, executive producer Sophie Robinson warned viewers that they were about to see a horror film.

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY HERE

Professionally assembled, Scott’s film doesn’t simply highlight the environmental hazards from climate change, but also examines dangers that cascade from them.

“It’s called a threat multiplier,” Robinson says. The term, used in the documentary by military officials, explains how a cluster of catastrophes—international conflicts, mass population migration, resource scarcity and even terrorism—emerge from the escalating threat of global warming.

Before she spent a year and a half producing the searing documentary for PF Films, Robinson got her start as a grassroots climate change organizer in Massachusetts. She was involved in a statewide network battling the environmental crisis. She also spent time as a science teacher.

A catalysis for her work on The Age of Consequences was another PF Films: Do the Math. That 2013 documentary, directed by Scott and Kelly Nyks, detailed the hazards of the fossil fuel industry. Its against-the-grain style got noticed, Robinson says.

“It got people excited.”

The film drew Robinson to PF Films, where she worked with Scott and his team fashion a unique take on the issue of global warming.

“We decided to make a film for people sick of seeing the same climate change films,” she says. “We wanted a ‘conversation opener.’ We asked ourselves what are some new angles?”

PF Films

A new angle was to seek a bipartisan one. Along with scientists and environmentalists, Age looks to admirals, generals and veterans to bolster its theme that environmental abuses and neglect can spiral into civil conflict, migration catastrophes, food shortages, terrorism recruitment—all while overwhelming humanitarian efforts.

Does Robinson think the matter-of-factly scary tone will be a liability for the film? She laughs. “Luckily, people don’t know how scary it is before they watch it.” It’s frightening stuff, she says, but that’s necessary to convey the seriousness of climate change.

One could think such a documentary would receive pushback in conservative circles, but interestingly the film’s strong representation of the military ruffled some feathers in liberal corners, Robinson says. “Some environmental groups thought we were too soft on the military.” But the military and security community are strong believers in the importance of taking serious climate change and its consequences. Those experts lend gravity to the film in a way a dozens of scientist cannot.

Despite its bleak presentation, the film’s ultimate aim is to encourage a positive change.

“We try to leave people with hope,” Robinson says. “There is an opportunity to change things. I actually feel lucky: I can make a difference in the outcome of our future. This is an opportunity to step up.”

The film debuted on Jan. 27.

 

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Quik Flix Hit

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The Age of Consequences (2016)

Unrated

 

PF Films

We’ve seen climate change documentaries that present us with the unnerving prospects of global environmental dangers, real and theorized, pushing our ecosystem past a bleak point of no return. Have we seen one arguing that a cluster of catastrophes—international conflicts, migration, scarcity of resources, even terrorism—emanate out from the epicenter of a man-made ground zero: global warming?

I might be slightly exaggerating when I say The Age of Consequences edges into the realm of a horror film.

The new documentary, professional and smartly directed by Jared P. Scott from PF Films, arrives Jan. 27 in an intense political season that either amplifies the stakes of its dire message, or will work against the film just as its call for cultural and legislative action is needed most. You know where you stand on the issue of climate change.

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SOPHIE ROBINSON

Age works to tilt viewers away from partisan perspectives, hoping that fact-of-the-matter, up-to-moment catastrophes will speak louder than political talking points. The doc gets a big lift by featuring military experts speaking convincingly of their beliefs and, more importantly, experiences in the real cause-and-effect of environmental destruction. We’ve heard environmentalists and left-leaning politicians’ pleas for action, but Scott’s film mostly looks to admirals, generals, veterans to bolster an overarching theme that environmental abuses/neglect can cascade into civil conflict, migration catastrophes, food shortages, terrorism recruitment, and overwhelm humanitarian efforts.

What was once laughed off as “tree-hugger” hyperbole has been termed in some corners of the military as a “threat multiplier.” The film follows the dominoes as they fall: Climate change exacerbated one of the worst droughts in Syrian history. The three-year drought begun at the end of 2006 ultimately triggered 1.5 million Syrian men to leave their farmlands and move to city locations, seeking jobs and food. Additionally, Iraqi refugees were at the time migrating into Syria. These two factors alone spurred a 30 percent population growth in urban areas, which in turn drove up food and apartment prices, as well as drained the health-care system. Such strife is cited by officials in the film as a factor giving rise to civil war. Broken social structures leave openings for terrorist recruitment. The film suggests climate-change hazards will increase such migrations and their consequences.

And look at the threat multiplier from a financial perspective: A 2010 Russia-China drought, the film states, lead to wheat shortages in those countries. The countries responded by purchasing wheat on the global food market, which drove up prices across the planet, spurring economic chaos.

And from a humanitarian perspective: When global warming wreaks havoc on populated regions, getting aid to displaced millions increasingly is becoming a logistical nightmare, and soon, the film suggests, an unsustainable effort. The U.S. military alone spends increasing amounts of time exclusively on humanitarian and recovery efforts. It would take but a small cluster of these catastrophes occurring simultaneously to break the back a nation or create a devastating domino effect across the globe.

Scott and his cameraman Michael McSweeney keep the film moving by using sharp visuals. A reoccurring radar chart graphic works well as a visual interpretation of the tangled arms of environmental and social threats across the globe. The film makes good use of archival footage from current conflicts and catastrophes. Hurricane Katrina footage still chills to the bone. A technique of placing a subject center frame and at a distance (to highlight beautiful corridors and staterooms of power) subvert the common method of using standard shots of talking heads.

The Age of Consequences left me wrung out and the solutions belatedly offered—better stewardship of the planet, alternative resources, a more aggressive timeline to confront environmental hazards—are of the stripe we’ve heard before and don’t completely mitigate all the dread it previously piled on. Perhaps they can’t. Maybe the film hopes to shock the viewer out of complacency. What remains to be seen is how it lands in an era in which those in seats of power and their supporters don’t exactly seem like cheerleaders for climate-change activism.

 

 

 

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Apparition Hill Interview

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EXPERIENCES ON THE HILL KEEPS BRINGING DIRECTORY BACK

sean_bloomfield

Sean Bloomfield

Before he made a film that follows seven strangers as they travel to a spiritual village in Bosnia-Herzegovina to investigate its miracles, Sean Bloomfield made the journey himself. “Something there moved me,” he recalls.

The filmmaker and author has explored religion and spirituality in previous works, but his experiences in the village of Medjugorje remained with him. In 1981, the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared before six local youths there. In the years since, thousands seeking miracles and enlightenment walk the village’s jagged hillside to the spot marked with a statue of Mary.

“It was either the biggest hoax or a miracle,” Bloomfield remembers thinking. He would make more trips there.

In returning last year to Apparition Hill—the name given the sacred spot and the title of his new documentary—Bloomfield wanted to make the experience as authentic as possible for viewers.

READ MY REVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY

Bloomfield, a Florida native, selected his cast from a slew of video submissions. He settled on seven from the United States and London: two atheists; a widowed father of nine; a Catholic latecomer; a terminally ill wife and mother; an on-and-off drug abuser; and a man suffering from the debilitating disease ALS.

Bloomfield’s camera watches these volunteers as they embark on a two-week pilgrimage, each seeking something—a renewal of faith, a pull into something beyond secular security, self-awareness, a life-saving miracle.

Besides peeking into the lives of the cast, Bloomfield’s camera allows us to peer into a specific place, this small village, which seems to glow in its spirituality. As we watch, we get accustomed to the village’s geography and the rhythms of the community—priests, tourists, visionaries and filmmakers alike move through Medjugorje with a sense of intimate purpose.

“There are so many stories there,” Bloomfield says. “There’s something about this place, but more so the people.”

In addition to the cast, the documentary weaves in a tapestry of locals: an area physician who begins to believe in a power beyond her medical training; a recovering addict who makes the place his home and now helps others; a tour guide and mentor who lends a sense of history; and of course the “visionaries” who first claimed to see the Virgin Mary.

One such visionary, Mirjana Soldo, is significantly featured in the documentary. Sixteen at the time of her visitation, Soldo has devoted her life to her pilgrimages and to bringing a message of hope to the world-weary. Her story captivated Bloomfield.

“As a teen she was persecuted,” he says.

apparition-hill

Stella Mar Films

It wasn’t easy being a person claiming to have met the Virgin Mary, much less so when that person is a teenager. In the documentary, as Soldo communes with Mary, a look overtakes her, tears stream down her cheeks, she begins to smile like she’s tapped into something profound. She has told her story in a book; Bloomfield feels there is more to tell. “I would like to continue her story,” he says.

How will a film so unapologetically spiritual be received?

“We tried to make it objective,” Bloomfield says. “We just tried to record the story. We didn’t want to impose on the audience what to take away from the film.”

Audiences seem to be responding positively. It’s gaining a word-of-mouth following on social media and is selling out limited screenings.

And what about his cast? Most seem changed by the experience.

“We stay in touch,” Bloomfield says. The group maintains a private Facebook page to stay abreast of each other’s lives. “We’re like family,” he adds.

Up next for the director are plans to document the experiences of a youth festival on Cross Mountain in the same village. It was shot by a second crew at the same time Bloomfield was filming Apparition Hill.

In this time of a bruising presidential campaign and a divided nation Bloomfield believes the film is timely.

“There are things that transcend human problems,” he suggests.

Check here for screening dates and locations.

 

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