This blog originally appeared as part of VHX's Success Stories series. Based on his bestselling memoir of the same name, Life Itself explores the legacy of film critic Roger Ebert's life. Directed by Steve James, the film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously screened online exclusively for the film's Indiegogo supporters. 

OBJECTIVE

Use crowdfunding to build community.

SOLUTION

Offer the ability for supporters to stream the film at the same time as the Sundance premiere.

In addition to raising funds, the Life Itself campaign was about building audience and community around the film. Steve James' Hoop Dreams premiered at Sundance 20 years before Life Itself, and the community that Sundance represented both for the film, the filmmakers, and for Roger Ebert and his family were so important. How can the Internet make the supporters of the film feel like they are part of the community?

The best way to achieve that was to give those 1,500 eligible supporters the chance to watch the film at the exact same time as the Sundance Film Festival premiere. They could stream it as many times as they liked for two weeks. After the premiere, fans were treated to a live video Q&A from the filmmakers, courtesy of YouTube. Fans rejoiced.

The screening showed that you can use the Internet to build off the intimate setting of a festival premiere, and provide a lift to your existing promotional and marketing efforts. Events like festivals are great at building awareness and interest. Offering your most passionate supporters the ability to participate wherever they are represents the true value of community on the Internet.

TIPS/BEST PRACTICES: Have a clear plan 

The producers of Life Itself knew they wanted to stream the film at the same time as the Sundance premiere, and were very clear with their supporters on Indiegogo how it was going to work. Be prepared for questions about how fans can access the film and for how long. Pairing with a live event means you need to be ready to respond to questions quickly so your supporters don't feel left out! 

Feedback On Twitter

.@Kartemquin and @vhxtv are combining movie magic and Internet magic in a way that honors @ebertchicago in a really authentic way.

— Alex Cox (@AlexCox) January 20, 2014

Excited for today's @EbertMovie livestream #Sundance2014. Huge thanks to Steve James @Kartemquin, @Indiegogo @vhxtv for making this possible

— Kim (@kim) January 19, 2014

Thousands of miles from Sundance, I enjoy the premiere of "Life Itself" on my Brooklyn widescreen, along with wife and cat #TheFutureIsHere

— Steven James Snyder (@TheSnydes) January 20, 2014

Our journey by car from Banjarmasin to Palangkaraya took almost five hours. We drove along a road that was in less than mint condition, all the while traveling past settlements. Interestingly, the settlements had only a single row of houses, with jungle starting right behind them.

We passed patches of burned down forest. Our friend and guide, Reiza, told us that large corporations started fires and burned down the woods, and then bought them off the state for small change. Deep in the forest live the tribes, over sixty different tribes on the island of Borneo. The fires drive them off their land, deeper into the jungle. Many of the tribes try to resist and oppose this, trying to preserve their way of life and territories that belong to them. Still, the hum of the new civilization leads them to defeat and certain eradication.

When Reiza told us the story, I realized it sounded like a synopsis of a very exciting and moving independent film. The fate of the tribes disappearing before the onslaught of corporations and the logic of profit is a universal story of contemporary society and civilization. With the tribes’ disappearing, their genuine way of life, their customs and culture will follow; an entire world will disappear.

In Palangkaraya we had a lovely meeting with the students of Muhammadiyah University and we had the pleasure of talking and hanging out with them for over two hours.

In the evening, we had a screening of our film in a fishermen’s village. That was the most exciting and moving part of our fantastic journey through Indonesia. Entering the fishermen’s village was like entering a surreal world of beautiful, warm, curious people. We were guests of the village elder, we met his family and talked film and life in the courtyard of his home. I was deeply moved by the wisdom of these intelligent, ordinary people, the simplicity and purity of their notions of life.

We talked about Circles, their impressions of the film, the similarities between all post-conflict environments around the world. And the kindness and humanity that is the same everywhere. Behind us, children were jumping and shouting, joyful and excited about animportant event taking place in their village. I had the feeling of being at the very core of life, the simplicity and beauty of life we so often forget about. Leaving the village, I asked Mathew for a cigarette and lit up for the first time in ten years.

I was still under the impression of our visit to the fishermen’s village when we landed in Jakarta. A vibrant, enormous, chaotic megalopolis. And I felt as though we’d just returned from an exciting and poetic film with all of us as heroes. Returned to a real life and a real world.

Before we turn our collective attention to a new season of independent film, a handful of releases from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival round out the year. Director Mona Fastvold’s unsettling drama The Sleepwalker, recently picked up by IFC, meditates on several fractured relationships forced to run their course in a secluded Massachusetts mansion, while Amir Bar-Lev’s Happy Valley provokes a far more disturbing variety of distress in its scathing deconstruction of the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State.

Below, check out all of the Sundance-supported films hitting theaters and coming to DVD and Blu-Ray.

In Theaters

Wednesday, November 19

Happy Valley, directed by Amir Bar-Lev

Thursday, November 20

An Illiad, PBS (taped live performance), 10 p.m.

Friday, November 21

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, directed by Ana lily Amirpour

The Sleepwalker, directed by Mona Fastvold

Friday, November 28

The Babadook, directed by Jennifer Kent

DVD & Blu-Ray

Tuesday, November 4

A Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn

Tuesday, November 11

This May Be The Last Time, directed by Sterlin Harjo

The Babadook, directed by Jennifer Kent

Happy Christmas, directed by Joe Swanberg 

There seems to be a faction of horror flick aficionados who loathe anything less than gratuitous violence in their films. A caveat for those fans: while this list may not be for you, our prior years’ Haunted Collections do pander to your macabre desires – check them out here and here.

For Halloween this year, we’ve culled our selections strictly from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, which featured a dynamic group of what we’ll call “horror-adjacent” films across various program categories – Competition, Spotlight, and of course the Midnight Section. All of these films are currently available in theaters, On Demand, or for purchase on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Blue Ruin

We’ll kick off with a film from the Spotlight section, which highlights Sundance programmers’ favorite picks from other festivals, and in this case, Cannes. Jeremy Saulnier’s consuming thriller displays his acumen for constructing stark, convincing environments, which he first exhibited as the cinematographer on 2013’s I Used to Be Darker. Blue Ruin adopts a different world, but one equally enveloping and that follows an enigmatic man’s pursuit of vengeance after he learns that his parents’ murderer will son be released from prison. Watch it now.

What We Do In The Shadows

Longtime friends and collaborators Taika Waititi and actor Jermaine Clement – of Eagle vs. Shark and Flight of the Conchords, respectively – reconvene for this peculiar bit of droll humor. The pair has unabashedly christened the film a “vampire mockumentary,” and it delivers on that promise and then some. What We Do In The Shadows chronicles the anything but quotidian lives of Viago (379 years old), Deacon (183 years old), Vladislav (862 years old), and Peter (8,000 years old), a group of vampires who have chosen to share a flat in Wellington, New Zealand. Waititi and Clement share writing, directing, and acting duties in this hilarious corrective to the ubiquitous vampire romances of our day. Watch it now.

Life After Beth

Jeff Baena, writer of 2004 hit I Heart Huckabees, made his directorial debut with Life After Beth, a film that walks a fine line between zombie thriller, madcap comedy, and poignant romance. Naturally, any narrative attempting to fuse those disparate components would need to solicit a cast that could deftly walk those genre lines. For their lead roles, Aubrey Plaza and Dane DeHaan offer a pair of revelatory performances. Beth (Plaza) dies unexpectedly and leaves her boyfriend Zach (DeHaan) miserable and despondent, until she stumbles back into Zach’s life as a mercurial zombie. Watch it now.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night can feel hypnotic in its in ability to lure audiences. The 2014 NEXT section film transports viewers to the film’s fictitious Bad City, a home to debauched drug users and other degenerates where a subdued vampire stalks the denizens. However improbable, our vampire “Girl,” stunningly portrayed by Sheila Vand, only changes her ways upon being seduced by a debonair romantic named Arash. At the Festival in January, director Ana Lily Amirpour’s indelible choice of words about the film’s anamorphic and black-and-white qualities still ring true: it provokes a “separation from reality.” Indeed, the spacious, shadowy confines of A Girl are among the film’s greatest offerings. In theaters November 21st.

The Babadook

For a film out of the sometimes-overlooked Midnight section, murmurs about The Babadook swept through Park City with surprising energy last January. Perhaps it’s because the film – digesting the trailer alone takes some mental fortitude – is a multilayered and terrifying experience. The narrative is one so unsettling that it surely engenders questions of where the creator’s mind travels to gather such material. That’s a topic for another time, as director Jennifer Kent is brilliant in conveying this hybrid horror/mindbender that sees a mother and son fending off a bogeyman incarnate named Mister Babadook. Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman are a convincing mother-and-son duo in this cerebral effort that will have you questioning what’s real and what’s imagined. In theaters and On-Demand November 28th.

First-time filmmaker Peter Sattler got the inspiration for Camp X-Ray, a gritty drama about soldiers watching over suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, after he watched documentary footage of a guard and a detainee discussing the books on a library cart.

“It was the most surreal, absurd interchange I’ve ever seen in my life,” Sattler told the audience at the film’s Sundance Film Festival premiere last January. “I saw this vision of a two-hander, one room-type of movie where these two characters just talk. I wondered what they’d talk about. To me, it was a cool way to address Guantanamo Bay indirectly.”

The writer/director said he didn’t want to make a propaganda movie. Yet Camp X-Ray is often sympathetic to the plight of the prisoners, specifically Ali, an innocent detainee, played by Peyman Moaadi, in the film’s strongest performance. Ali is watched over by a female guard named Amy (Kristen Stewart), who begins to question the abusive treatment of detainees at the camp. After some Hannibal Lecter-Clarice Starling-style banter, the two form an unlikely friendship over, you guessed it, the selection of reading material at the controversial U.S. prison camp.

Moaadi, a gifted, charismatic actor known to movie audiences for his searing work in 2011’s A Separation, discussed the preparation he underwent to play Ali, saying he spent many hours alone in his prison cell. “They only let me out to come here today,” he joked.

Stewart’s pouty sullenness has often characterized previous performances, but it serves her well here. The actress, also on hand for the Q&A, told the audience it was important for her to figure out exactly who her sometimes inscrutable character was so she spent hours watching numerous documentaries about the subject matter, which depicted “both sides of the coin.” Stewart revealed that she also trained for several days with a “really awesome Marine named JB who…whipped me into shape.”

Stewart effectively de-glammed herself to play Amy and Sattler added that just getting Stewart into the uniform resulted in a huge transformation in his star. Sattler said he initially intended for Stewart’s character to be male, but he changed to a female protagonist to create more conflict between the two main characters.

Camp X-Ray opens in theaters and is available On Demand Friday, October 17. Click here to find a screening.

Meeting different people from different parts of the world and talking about art and its universality, experiencing cinema’s power to bring people together and connect us, however different, through its stories, characters and emotion it carries – this is one of the greatest privileges and rewards of the work of a film director. It’s also one of the reasons why I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker. I was reminded of it in Indonesia, meeting all kinds of people, and talking to them about the film Circles, but also other films, art, and everyday, ordinary life.

In Jakarta, a huge, vibrant megalopolis, at Jakarta Institute of Arts, I got to meet young people, students of the Faculty of Film and Television, who reminded me of the energy and passion with which I used to talk and think about film when I was their age and a student of directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. How eager I was to learn and understand everything I could about film, see films by filmmakers I hadn’t yet been familiar with, discuss cinema all day with my fellow students. This was the only thing I was interested in and the only duty I had at the time.

I no longer have this passion, I guess it’s not really becoming for my age. That’s why I was sincerely and powerfully fascinated and touched by the energy of young film students in Jakarta. We saw an exceptionally good student film, talked to its authors, shared a part of our experience and learned a bit about their experience and their views on art.

On the third day of our journey we arrived in Banjarmasin, a vigorous and captivating town on the island of Borneo. We had great talks with bright and very educated students at two state universities – Lambung Mankuraat University (Faculty of Political and Social Science) and IAIN Antasari Faculty of Tarbiyah (Law).

The following morning we went to the floating market. It was one of the most gripping and exciting events I’ve ever experienced. Real life with all the juices, fullness and shades of this ordinary, everyday life. And yet full of colour and incredible scenes. Poetic in a Fellini sense of the word, even surreal. And in its essence, cruel and hard, as is the life of these people.

A sight full of contrasts, like the very core of the art of cinema.

A moment when real life and fantasy come together.

And create a new world, woven out of life, dreams and sheer beauty.

The shift from Jakarta to Yogyakarta (or just “Jogja” in local speak) is a bit like trading a city like Los Angeles for a prominent university town like Berkeley or Ann Arbor.  There’s an instant sense of concentrated culture and learning in Jogja, and the city of over 300,000 is known throughout Indonesia as the educational capital of the country.  We spent a day touring and screening at Muhammadiyah University, a bustling campus near the city where students were enjoying the sunny day out in their open quad area listening to bands playing…the universal college feel was in the air.  Our screening group of over 100 students included writing, journalism, fine arts and other disciplines, and the Q&A session after the film was a real pleasure.  The common themes that audiences related to in Jakarta came out even more so here with this young group, who seemed especially interested in the bigger themes of social change and history in the film.  

The emotional stakes were raised for me even more that evening, when we screened the film at a very eclectic art space in a funky, gallery-rich district of the city.  The tropical warmth and the big loft-like space gave the film a house party feel, with a potluck dinner afterward and one of the most touching comments we got on the whole trip.  A young woman stood up during the Q&A, and, on the edge of tears, told us that she too was a singer who was struggling to find her path in her craft, and that the women of 20 Feet From Stardom spoke to her directly through the film, giving her the hope and courage to keep going.  The room got a lot smaller in that moment, along with the rest of the world…we were all connected across vast physical distances by common beliefs in our artistic aspirations.

Too soon, we had to pack up and relocate to Denpasar, the capital of the island of Bali and home to vast beaches, soaring temples and yet another diverse culture in this country made up of so many.  Bali is largely Hindu, in a large nation that is predominantly Muslim, and the blend of cultures and history makes for a unique lesson in modern tolerance.  The small morning offerings set out in front of houses and shops in Denpasar were a reminder of the traditions of the island, and when I finally made my early morning walk down to the shores of the Indian Ocean, I had that sudden globe-spinning feel of being so far from home…staring out across the water towards nothing but Antarctica far off past the horizon.  

There’s a special kind of light here that highlights the shrines and distant volcanoes we saw later that afternoon at a student screening at a cultural space owned by [name of paper], a Bali-based newspaper that focuses on the arts.  I was able to give a brief talk on the ideas of documentary editing here, using clips from 20 Feet From Stardom and other films, and this new group of students once again showed up with great questions and promising ideas for their own work.  We’d visited earlier with the organizers of the local film festival known as the “Balinale” (a great play on the Berlin fest) and it was pretty clear that the Balinese took their cultural events very seriously!

Closing out the night, I got to finally see, after hearing recordings for years, a live performance of the famed Ramayana Monkey Chant, also known as Kecak, in which a large group of men (there are now also female Kecak groups too) chant continuously for nearly an hour and a half as the staging music for a telling of the battle between lovers Rama and Sita and evil King Ravana.  As removed as this musical form was from the singers of 20 Feet From Stardom, this final night’s performance was just as magical to take in.  

I had an unforgettable, transformative time with Film Forward and our many new Indonesian friends…looking forward to returning in the years to come, to see where the young filmmakers we met go with their exciting voices!

It takes some serious pluck to share your story with the world. When that story straddles disparate cultural lines – like life as both a Korean-American and homosexual – it can seem a lot like self-sabotage.

With Spa Night, Andrew Ahn will attempt to bring the recondite world of the Korean-American gay community to light through a story that he says is “not my life, but it could have been.” Ahn’s protagonist, a closeted Korean-American teen takes a job at a Korean spa where he discovers a simultaneously terrifying and titillating world of underground sex. From there, he’s forced to starkly confront his identity as a young gay man and what it means for his corresponding life as a Korean-American.

Andrew Ahn is a 2013 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Fellow and screened his short film Dol (First Birthday) at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Now, he is seeking funding through Kickstarter to produce his feature-length debut Spa Night. Check out more on Ahn and his project below, including some tempting Kickstarter incentives in the form of “selfies” and karaoke.

Spa Night doesn’t appear expressly autobiographical, but it is strongly informed by your own experiences. Is that a fair interpretation? 

Andrew Ahn: That is a very fair interpretation! Spa Night may not be autobiographical, but it’s still very personal. My main character David feels like he could be a cousin of mine, someone that lives in the same community, breathes the same air as me. David is an amalgamation of different people that I know, of different experiences I have had. David and I are very different people, but I feel like we’re emotionally linked.

I think it’s impossible to create a story, place, or character from scratch. It always comes from some personal experience or at least interest. Spa Night is not my life, but it could have been.

You’ve described Spa Night as a film that explores what it means to be gay and Korean-American. In regards to the duality of that existence, what does it mean to inhabit both of those worlds?

Ahn: As a second-generation Korean-American, my connection to my Korean identity is almost entirely defined by my family. If I lived in Korea, my Korean identity would be informed by many other things: my citizenship, my language, my pop culture, etc. But because I’m Korean-American, I mainly feel Korean because I have a Korean mother and a Korean father.

So what happens if I don’t have a Korean wife and don’t have a Korean child? Suddenly, my Korean identity is at stake because my homosexuality keeps me from duplicating that family structure. In this way, my two identities feel at odds with each other.

This is why I’m so thankful for the LGBTQ Korean-American community. We can define our Korean identities and our queer identities through each other. In Spa Night, David hasn’t quite figured this out, but he gets one step closer.

Because this is such a uniquely personal story, how do you envisage viewers outside of either the Korean-American or gay community connecting with the narrative?

Ahn: At its core, Spa Night is about growing up. It’s about becoming your own person. At the beginning of the film, David is attracted to men, he has these desires, but he isn’t ready to make it an identity, to make it a part of himself. By the end of the film, David gets it. He grows up. I think everyone understands that journey. We all grow up with different expectations of our futures that come from outside sources: family, community, society. But there’s always a moment when you can finally hear yourself above the noise, telling you what you really want. This is the moment that Spa Night explores.

I’m also excited to share a slice of Korean-American culture with people who many not be so familiar with it. A lot of people have done Korean BBQ, but have they gone to a Korean spa? A Korean church? An Asian-American frat party? This is a peak into a world that people know exist but haven’t ventured into. I think it should be really fun and eye-opening.

Which filmmakers do you count as having inspired or fueled your passion for film?

Ahn: I love filmmakers who can capture a sense of humanity in their work. The Dardenne brothers and John Cassavetes are huge, huge inspirations. There’s something about their filmmaking that feels so alive, so slippery. It’s so thrilling to watch. And then there’s Ozu. I love Yasujiro Ozu so much. I think Late Spring is the most beautiful film ever made. Each character, each place, each moment is given so much respect. Late Spring is so open-hearted. It doesn’t try and hide anything. There’s no crazy twist. It’s just honest.

That’s something I’m trying to do with Spa Night. I want to be an honest filmmaker. Earlier drafts of the screenplay actually took place entirely in the spa. It was cool, but a little gimmicky. I realized I was hiding a very compelling part of the story — David’s family. And I was hiding it because that’s the most difficult, the most emotional part. As soon as I started the next draft, the whole film clicked for me.

One of the greatest tools Kickstarter offers are the pledge rewards. Yours are as thoughtful and hilarious as any – how many personalized karaoke thank you songs do you have in you?

Ahn: I’ll sing every song in the karaoke books, if it that’s what it takes to reach my Kickstarter goal! Bohemian Rhapsody, Don’t Stop Believin’, Lisa Loeb Stay — whatever it is, I’ll do it. Also, I’m Korean. There’s no such thing as too much karaoke.

Sometimes the best things you learn are the things you learn all over again.

After twenty-odd hours of air travel, enhanced by the slightly terrifying yet utterly adorable Hello Kitty jets of EVA Airlines, I found myself stumbling on cramped legs out of Jakarta International Airport into the completely inappropriate daytime light (at least to my internal clock!).  We headed into the astonishing dense but strangely fluid traffic of the main road into the central city.  Jakarta is a true mega-city, with 12 million residents living across the Javanese northwest lowlands, and it seemed like all of them were riding around us in a massive motorcycle welcoming parade.

That evening, we were at the multiplex theater near our hotel, finishing the first screening of 20 Feet From Stardom.  It was great taking in the warm reaction from the premiere audience here, especially their appreciation of the deeper themes of the film during the Q&A.  20 Feet From Stardom is not just about the great unheralded talent of the best background singers of our times, but also serves as an alternate take on the history of America through the tumult of the era of civil rights, the rise of modern feminism, and the huge changes in culture and society in the last half century.  Sharing this broad story through Film Forward screenings in Jakarta, lots of great questions came forward from successive audiences about our inspirations, our process, and our challenges.

As we met several groups of independent filmmakers and film students around Jakarta in the next few days, we saw a young, vibrant film culture boiling up from the grassroots, eager to tell stories for and about the vast Indonesian experience. (I quickly learned that Indonesia has the fourth largest national population on earth.)  There’s a huge pool of talent both making new films and on its way in schools here.  At the Jakarta Institute of the Arts, we screened a standout student film about a family gathering to receive a grandmother’s living inheritance…her gifts: a series of old cabinets; the family’s reactions: funny and touching.  The story, look and feel of the film, along with the naturalistic performances, were uniquely Indonesian and stunning in their simple beauty.

That short film, along with the Film Forward discussions and screenings, kept reminding me of the thrill of first discovery, of learning and creating cinematic storytelling with the tools one is crafty enough to procure when there’s precious little budget and resources.  The exuberant conversations we had with local filmmakers make me feel that we’ll be seeing much, much more great cinema from Indonesia in the years to come.

Ibrahim Jarjoura is a Palestinian American living in Ann Arbor, MI. He and his family attended the Film Forward: Michigan screening of Dancing in Jaffa at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, MI. This is his response to the film:

Dancing in Jaffa is a sweet and tender portrayal of an ugly reality in Israel today: prejudice and fear! The juxtaposition of optimism, beauty, and art against entrenched negative views of the "other" established at a very young age is striking, thought provoking, frustrating and most of all emotionally engaging.

The layers through which Pierre had to penetrate to make his dream a reality--religious, societal, or racial biases--in order to have a Palestinian preadolescent Muslim boy touch the hand of a preadolescent Jewish girl so that he can dance with her is as amazing as much as it is heart breaking. However, just like the dogged determination of Pierre and his insistence on making his vision for those Arab and Jewish kids a reality, a smile will force itself through your tears and triumph over the despair and sadness.

Hilla Medalia introduced us to a sweet group of characters that you couldn't help but like and feel attracted to. And as Itzik, a friend of mine with first hand knowledge and experience of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, always says, "Peace is made between two people at time."

This movie shows us the potential of creating peace between two adults at a time, two kids at time, a girl and a boy at a time...One can only hope.

I was very excited to go on the trip to Michigan as I feel that Dancing in Jaffa is very timely now with the recent tension and the war in Gaza. I was especially interested in having the discussion with the Arab American community there and having a dialogue with them.

Dearborn has the largest community of Arabs outside the Middle East. I had never been there before and aside from this information which I read before I traveled, I didn't know what to expect. Before the screenings began, the program collaborator at the Arab American National Museum wanted to meet me and discuss how we would handle the Q&A as they were very concerned that with the recent tensions and the war in Gaza, the discussion could turn very political and out of control. I have done many Q&As and some were very political so I assured them I could handle it, but secretly I was very nervous.

In the morning we screened at Fordson High School. The school is beautiful and the students were very interested in the film and the discussion afterwards. It was apparent that most of the students in the school come from an Arab background and many of the girls in the school wear head coverings.

Every encounter with an audience is always very interesting and especially when the questions and discussion are different from usual. This was my experience at Fordson. These students, for example, were very curious to know why the schools are segregated between the Palestinian Israeli and Jewish Israeli. Since in the U.S. there is a separation of religion and school, when we discussed the different curriculum it was so interesting to see their reaction to the fact that part of the curriculum includes religion. Even one of the final matriculation exams that is required in the Jewish schools is in the Jewish Bible.

In the evening we screened at the Arab American National Museum. The Q&A was very interesting and moving. A man raised his hand and shared that he is a Palestinian who fled with his family in 1948 to Lebanon and in the '80s part of his family was killed in Lebanon by the Israeli army. He came to the screening to challenge the film and me. But seeing the power of Pierre's work reminded him that the power to make a change is within people and that we have to be the ones who say "no more!" and fight for peace.  

One of the members of the community came to the screening with a relative who is a Palestinian Israeli. After the screening she came to me and said she is very depressed to go back. She loves the film but also it reminds her of all the challenges she has to face. We agreed that we need to go back to fight for a change. Her relative added that peace can be attained by one person. Or two people at time. It's you and me. So we should remember that and do it.

Before I left Dearborn, someone came to me said, "It is so great to see someone from the other side [meaning the Israeli side] who extends her hand and wants to find a solution. I asked him what he meant by that and he told me he only knows and hears people from his side doing this. The amazing thing is that Israelis and Palestinians very often say and feel the exact same way, just opposite.

Shawntai Genell Brown is a freelance blogger, playwright, storyteller and poet living in Detroit, Michigan. She is sharing her experience of Film Forward: Michigan on her blog: Shawntai's Spiral Notebook.

Sundance Institute's Film Forward brought eight full-length films to screen around Michigan this year. The mitten was one of eight destinations for this season, and the featured selections couldn't have been a more perfect fit. I frequented the screenings and talk-backs of Dancing in Jaffa, Fruitvale Station and Valentine Road. All touched on issues that easily translate into local concerns for the Detroit area. The biggest one for me is the power of seeing the humanity in your neighbors.

While Film Forward was on hiatus for the weekend, I traveled to the Detroit Design Festival on the Ave - my usual area for buttery breakfast at 1917 American Bistro. Just a block away from my favorite food, about 20 people were packed into a coffee house gallery watching cold readings of Detroit-born plays. Following the performances, the community happily tucked within the coffee shop had a discussion about what it is to be a neighbor. Backstory: Livernois (also known as The Ave) and Seven Mile has been a point of tension between some people living in the Bagley neighborhood to the west of The Ave and those living just east, including Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest and the University District. While the size and architecture of the homes just west of Livernois are somewhat comparable to the neighborhoods to the east, it's easy to see what differs. The Ave has been a dividing line economically and socially, although neighbors are making efforts to bridge the communities through events and discussions. One voice in the audience at Detroit By Design said it is the relationships between people that change an area from a "hood" to a "neighborhood." But who do we consider a "neighbor?" If we can answer that, we can turn all of our neighborhoods around.

In Dancing in Jaffa, the Jewish and Arab children grimaced at the command to touch hands while dancing. I wanted to be appalled, but I've been a child who groaned when I learned I had to go to the East Side of the city, blindly believing the rumors that crime was so much worse there than in my own neighborhood. I was one to talk since one of my neighbors was then a known drug dealer on my street. Still, I played with his kids until we were preteens. I ate hot dogs from his family's front yard cookouts. I ran to the store for his mother a few times. But he was my neighbor, and those East Siders were just East Siders in my eyes. Perhaps if I had never sat through a 2-hour game of I Declare War with his two daughters I would have seen my neighbor as evil. Of course, the issues behind Dancing in Jaffa are bigger than petty East Side/West Side rumors. Detroit's problems have not led to massive casualties on the scale of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Still, Detroit's largely segregated population has been a point of deadly tension. The beating of Steve Utash and slaughter of Renisha McBride are two stories a great deal of people believe show the racial tension in the Metro area. But race is not the only issue touching the city. Much could be changed.

As the Arab and Jewish children danced together, thinking they would bear through the torture of dealing with "the enemy" to get the trophy, they began to talk more to each other. They danced in one another's living rooms. They took turns paddling a shared row boat. They began to see that their dance partner might not represent what their parents were marching in the streets in protests of. Their dance partner instead was another child - dare they might have said a neighbor.

What if the officer who shot Oscar Grant, as chronicled in the film Fruitvale Station, had seen Grant as his neighbor - a neighbor who may have been involved in a breach of public safety but still deserved respect. If we took away the filter of fear of the "other" might more police officers be able to secure neighborhoods and still show respect and dignity to all in the community? I would love to see a difference in the way drug raids are handled in Detroit, so that an entire community isn't targeted and seen as suspects. When I saw the officer shoot Grant in the film, I thought of what kind of neighbor young Aiyana Jones might have become had an officer not shot and killed her during a raid. Even before Grant was shot, it was a rival from his past who attacked him on the train. I'm reminded of all of the gang violence exacerbated by consolidating Detroit Public Schools, and I worry about young people eager to exterminate those decidedly different from them. The bruised spots in Detroit's story are intertwined: some residents fear each other, some fear the police, and some police fear residents.

To make real change, we will all have to adjust our thinking. The haunting but honest recordings of Oxnard, Calif. residents expressing how they feel Larry Latisha King brought about her own demise in Valentine Road echoes how many feel about transgender people within Detroit. Many see them as expendable social ills who invite violence. Many see black people, homeless people, immigrants from south of the US border and people with mental illness this way as well. But this way of thinking seems to be slowly dying out, although the pace is slow. I've seen my own father erase "faggot" from his vocabulary once he realized so many people he loved might fit that category he had mouthed such an ugly word for.  

Here's how I want to change: I don't want to wait for someone to be proven human for me to decide to value and respect them. Generally, I am good at this. Still, I was the kid who wouldn't travel east. Since then I've dated and befriended many East Siders, confirming they are normal non-violent beings. However, without good reason I rarely venture beyond Woodward's dividing line, and when I do I am hesitant to stop for gas. I've internalized the misconceptions - haven't we all? Perhaps as these films continue to weave themselves into living rooms and theaters, more people will be encouraged to let their long-held misconceptions about their neighbors fade.

Ted Curran is a student at EMU in Ypsilanti, Michigan and a participant of 826michigan. He is studying history in the hopes of one day becoming a teacher and imparting vast quantities of useless trivia to his students. He shares his reflections on screening Fruitvale Station and Valentine Road with Film Forward: Michigan.

Film is nothing without the discussion that surrounds it. This is especially true in the age of the internet – all the online discussion of last year's superhero movies alone could probably fill an entire library. Discussion turns the experience of film into a collective one. It creates enduring memories, and elevates film to something more than simply images on a screen.

While there's certainly plenty of entertaining discussion to be had over the ending of Inception, or the rubber nipples on the Batsuit in Batman and Robin, it's rare for blockbuster-focused Hollywood to release films that can get a diverse audience to have serious discussions on social and political issues. It's fortunate that we have Film Forward trying to address exactly this issue.

The first Film Forward screening I attended was Fruitvale Station, a drama based on the real-life shooting of Oscar Grant by police in a Bay Area train station in 2009. Almost everything I heard initially about the film was positive, both from online reviews (currently at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and from relatives who had seen the film. I have a natural tendency to be skeptical about the quality of something that I hear nothing but praise for, so I went into the theater fairly uncertain of what to expect. I've seen the film now, and I can report that it does indeed live up to the high acclaim.

The film follows Oscar through his day, leading up to his fatal encounter with the police shortly after midnight on New Year's Eve. We see Oscar taking his daughter to preschool, preparing for his mother's birthday, and pleading with his former boss to give him his job back. There is the sense of the struggles and joy that we all experience in our lives.

What really makes the movie work is the way the writing and acting come together so perfectly to make the characters totally and believably human. Every actor in this movie does a fantastic job. Even  relatively minor parts, such as the officers that arrest Oscar at the end, are played with seriousness and weight that help tie the film together. When we hear tragic stories like Oscar's in the media, there's always an instinct to make somebody involved into a one-dimensional villain. This especially true when the story is a familiar on that touches a raw nerve with so many people – an unarmed black man being shot by a white cop. However, the film escapes the trap of making the cop into a villain. Despite the monstrous act he has just committed, the film shows the cop as a human being who becomes horrified by what he has done – all from just a few short scenes of emoting.

If the film resists the temptation to make the police into simplistic villains, it also resists making the character of Oscar into a tragic hero. Oscar in the movie is a loving father who is devoted to his family and cries when a dog is hit by a car, but also a fundamentally flawed person, an unemployed ex-con struggling to make ends meet and support the family he loves so much. He is someone we can all sympathize with and relate to, but not someone we look up to or aspire to be as we do with heroic characters. If anything, Oscar's flaws make him more compelling, more relatable, more human.

The screening couldn't have been better timed for a discussion of the issues of police brutality and racism addressed within the movie. With the Michael Brown shooting and the aftermath still fresh in people's minds, the post-screening discussion was lively, with many comparisons drawn between the two shootings. What stood out to me the most, though, was a man in the front row who said he had wandered into the film on his way to class, described himself as an aspiring filmaker, and said the film had been an inspirational experience to him. Fruitvale Station is a story that needed to be told, told in the greatest possible way, and hopefully it will inspire even more people to tell stories that need to be told.         

While Fruitvale Station certainly was not lacking in tragedy and emotional impact, the next film, Valentine Road, was perhaps even more tragic and impactful. If this film had a greater emotional impact than Fruitvale Station, it's probably because of its nature as a documentary. In addition to showing us the real pain and tears of real people involved in the tragedy, the fact that the film is not beholden to the constraints of a narrative allows it to dive deeper into its subject matter than a fictionalized account can. During the screening, I heard audible gasps and frantic whispers from audience members many times throughout the film. The film has an 89-minute runtime, only 4 minutes longer than Fruitvale, but the amount and weight of the information contained within make it feel much longer.

Valentine Road tells another pointless and tragic shooting, this one of 8th-grader Lawrence “Larry” King by his classmate Brandon McInerney. McInerney shot King in a computer lab, in front of an entire class and a teacher. McInerney was convicted of murder and sentenced to 21 years in prison after a lengthy court battle. Right away the film is tragic, and it only grows darker as it begins to explore the system of failure and hatred that led up to the shooting.

King and McInerney both came from troubled pasts. King had been adopted, taken from his family, and placed in a shelter for abused children, before entering care with a foster family. McInerney was raised by abusive, drug-addicted parents, and developed an interest in Neo-Nazism and white supremacy. Prior to the shooting, King had been experimenting with his gender expression by wearing makeup, earrings, and high-heeled boots to school. For this he was bullied by his classmates and frowned on by teachers. The film shows us interviews with both teachers and students filmed over the course of almost four years following the shooting. A surprising number of the interviewees – some of the teachers, McInerney's lawyers, and some of the jurors at his trial – express sympathy for McInerney, and attempt to justify his actions: one juror refers to the murder as “solving a problem”. We see McInerney and King's classmates struggling to deal with the tragedy that they witnessed, even as the school refuses to provide them with appropriate counseling and resources. Ultimately, the film paints an extremely unflattering picture of a society that was too flawed to prevent the tragedy from happening or to respond to it appropriately.

Perhaps because of the nature of the film's subject, the post-screening Q&A with the director, Marta Cunningham, was rather subdued. Several people offered their own theories as to what underlying social issues were responsible for the shooting – apart from the obvious ones of trans/homophobia. Cunningham described some of the difficulties she faced in getting the film made, describing how challenging it was for her and her crew to stay calm and neutral in the face of such emotionally charged material. While filming, some Neo-Nazi friends of Brandon's family had followed her and been vaguely threatening, but she said nothing came of it.

I left the theater that night feeling enlightened. It wasn't an uplifting kind of enlightenment – quite the opposite, in fact. I had just walked out of one of the most difficult and depressing films I have ever seen, and every tragic fact was still racing through my mind. However difficult the sit had been, however, I felt that both Fruitvale Station and Valentine Road and the proceeding discussions had given me a greater knowledge of the social injustices that still plague our society. We still have many battles to fight for social equality and justice. But, as an old philosopher once said...”knowing is half the battle”.

The youth organization Dedicated to Make a Change was invited to come to a screening of Valentine Road.  Gail Wolkoff, Executive Director, shares the students' experiences.

Dedicated to Make a Change, L3C is an all-inclusive youth organization. We support learning in a holistic and civic-minded fashion and provide high-quality, diverse opportunities for youth to learn through action about justice, diversity and social responsibility. We work with teens in Washtenaw County to support their dreams and restore their excitement in learning. One program in particular is focused on helping young teen’s combat academic iniquity and thrive in spite of a school system that is failing them: H.O.P.E., or Having Opportunities for Positive Education. Another of our program is Prevent and Prevail which is a comprehensive sex education program where youth-facilitate HIV prevention program. The teens host discussions of sex, empowerment, identity, orientation, expression, and prevention for STIs and HIV for their peers.

The youth who wrote the blog entries were from the H.O.P.E. program.  The blogging opportunity gave a opportunity to look objectively at youth concerning youth "hate" crimes.  Most of the youth have witnessed gun violence in their community, but analyzing and understanding impact of gun violence in regards to hate crimes was an eye opening experience. Viewing this situation offered a chance to critically think about what it means to "hate" without knowing someone. We discuss sexual and gender identity, and what it means to be an ally.

Dedicated to Make a Change (DTMAC) is an all-inclusive youth organization. The youth at DTMAC are dedicated to making a positive impact on the community they reside in. when they were presented with the opportunity to go see the documentary Valentine Road they were overly ecstatic. When asked to record some of their thoughts they did so…

The movie told a lot of hurtful things. I did not know what to expect of Larry’s appearance, but before the movie I visualized what everybody was going to look like. All of Larry's friends were very hurt to lose him. Brandon took a young man’s life, and by doing so he made a grown man decision. Larry was a young man with a joyful heart but it was took by a peer. If you haven't watched this movie you should go see it
-Juan Davis
Class of 2016

My experience with watching the film Valentine Road really put me between a rock and a hard place. It was challenging on the thought of whether the defendant should be sentenced life or a hand full of years. This film sent out so many messages, and eye-openers. It also shows us the type of society we live in, and have to survive through on an everyday bases. It would be best for this film to be spread around internationally not just targeting teens and minors, but everyone! Once again this is a fantastic film.
-Maia Byrd
Class of 2016

The documentary Valentine Road was a very emotional, interesting, and detailed film. The film was based on a young boy who was shot and killed by his middle school classmate because of sexual orientation. It expressed the terrible feelings of Larry's fellow classmates and friends. In my opinion this is a great documentary.
-Justin Thomas
Class of 2016

Valentine Road was one of the most beautiful movies I’ve seen this year. This movie was more than I can put into words. Its so hard to come to an understanding about how you feel after you watch it. It was more of a documentary in a movie form. Its breath taking. Its something you would want to watch over and over again just to make sure you didnt miss anything. If you haven’t seen this film yet, YOU NEED TO!!!!
-Otha Nash
Class of 2016

Valentine Road was a very amazing and beautifully directed documentary. It opened my eyes to the reality of how judgmental society can be towards the Trans community. It also showed me that hate crimes are rarely ever handled fairly in the justice system. I hope that one day victims of hate crimes are not made to like they are the blame for their own harassment, assaults, and even murders.
-Douglass Harvey
Class of 2015, BSW

Five award winners from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival make their way to theaters this October, led by the Grand Jury Prize winner Whiplash, starring Miles Teller as a tenacious drum virtuoso training under the tutelage of a notoriously demanding mentor in J.K. Simmons. Things are similarly taut on the documentary side with the release of Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters, which intimately tracks the proceedings in an isolated North Dakota town where an oil boom has yielded droves of out-of-staters looking for work.  One local pastor shoulders the burden of the city’s new migrants by converting his church into a dorm and counseling center, until word gets out that sex offenders are among the church’s denizens.

Other highlights this month include William H. Macy’s directorial debut with Rudderless, and Kristen Stewart’s stint at Guantanamo Bay in Camp X-Ray. Check out all of this month’s Sundance-supported films below.

Friday, October 3

Fishing Without Nets, directed by Cutter Hodierne

Web Junkie, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia

Friday, October 10

The Overnighters, directed by Jesse Moss

Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle

Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, directed by Tommy Wirkola

Friday, October 17

Camp X-Ray, directed by Peter Sattler

Dear White People, directed by Justin Simien

Rudderless, directed by William H. Macy

Watchers of the Sky, directed by Edet Belzberg

Listen Up Philip, directed by Alex Ross Perry

Friday, October 24

Low Down, directed by Jeff Preiss

Laggies, directed by Lynn Shelton

White Bird in a Blizzard, directed by Gregg Araki

Let's start at the beginning. The myths about Detroit are wrong. The city and the people are strong, clear and proud. Ready to explore and engage with the difficult issues. I found the response to the screenings refreshing and engaging.

Hearing local filmmakers discuss their opinions openly of outsiders coming in and making films about "ruin porn" was fascinating.  It was not something I had thought of before but of course the minute I heard them speak about their upset over their city being described as burnt out and hopeless, I understood perfectly. It's all about the perspective of the storyteller. It always is. There is a tremendous amount of talent in Detroit and the filmmakers there are willing and interested in telling their stories. Why don't we envelop them into the fold instead of helicoptering the film industry in from LA and New York? Let the community tell their own stories. It is a theme I seem to be discussing quite frequently. As I bonded with the other filmmakers on this topic it was clear we were speaking the same language. We must stop labeling and defining communities, cities, people as hopeless and in need of bring saved. We need to listen and empower the people who are already there and doing the work! It was clear to me very good work is being done both creatively and from a social impact stance. The energy was palpable.

Our screening on the University of Michigan campus of Dearborn was nothing less than inspiring. We were told it was a "commuter college school" but what I witnessed was some of the most engaged teachers I have come into contact with since beginning my adventure of touring with Valentine Road. They are teaching courses called "Intellectual Empathy." I jokingly asked if I could take the class. Truly amazing discussions happened because the students were coming from a critical thinking standpoint. With the freedom to think outside the box but always with the idea of a connection to your fellow man or woman.

After some time of an excellent and engaging discussion, I felt so comfortable with this class and confident in their capabilities that I asked the hetero young men in the class what they would have done if some of the same in their class had blown them kisses and asked them to be their Valentine in front of a group of their friends. A couple of young men answered that they would want to beat that person up but probably wouldn't. And went on to say that the feeling did feel "primal" for them. I then asked what did they think Brandon was thinking. One young man gave an answer that I will never forget. "I think Brandon saw Larry as an object to be despised and no longer a human being with feelings." I was so struck by his clear voice and accurate perception. Also their ability and willingness to be self-reflective about feelings and thoughts that were not the necessarily popular and celebrated. The trust you can develop with eager and open students can be a life-changing event when you have the opportunity. I feel very grateful for the experience.

Our visit to the Spectrum Center on the University of Michigan campus was another highlight. The Spectrum Center was established in 1971 to serve the needs of the LGBT community on-campus. They are incredible. Their outreach is wide and inclusive of the community off-campus as well. Their programs are numerous and they are an extremely inspiring example of what can be done when the right people and resources are in harmony. I'm hoping to have a screening of Valentine Road with the Center at some point next year.

Our screening in Ann Arbor was at the Michigan Theater. A true historical and beautiful place. Again the community came out and supported us. Great questions and truly heartbroken but not discouraged.  It was not lost on me the difference in landscape of a college town with a surplus of funds and Detroit which is less than an hour away. What I did learn that evening was about a town called Ypsilanti. A lovely woman, Gail, from their local Youth Center called Dedicated to Make A Change, decided to bring ten of her students to see the film. She described the town as a "mini Detroit." Each child at the center has taken a pledge not to join a gang. The students that came were predominately African American and had just lost a friend who was killed due to gun violence. They were extremely distraught after viewing the film but wrote to me and sent some beautiful and insightful letters describing their reactions to the documentary. Here is one just one of the many beautiful responses we received from the student activists.

"My experience with watching the film Valentine Road really put me between a rock and a hard place. It was challenging on the thought of whether the defendant should be sentenced life or a hand full of years. This film sent out so many messages, and eye-openers. It also shows us the type of society we live in, and have to survive through on an everyday bases. It would be best for this film to be spread around internationally not just targeting teens and minors, but everyone! "
-Maia Byrd
Class of 2016

Incredibly poignant and what a clear voice she has! All I could think of is how many more of our children from cities like Oxnard, Detroit and Ypsilanti will have to die before we truly realize as a society how we must finally create true concrete change? When all lives are looked at as equal. Valentine Road is not just a film to these children, it's their legacy. When will we decide to change that legacy?

There is a discouraging paradox that exists in today’s climate of connectivity. While we are ostensibly more connected than ever, we are perhaps becoming more socially inept. Lilting, director Hong Khao’s wistful drama starring Ben Whishaw and Cheng Pei-pei, flips that contemporary notion on its head in a poignant study of communication and personal connection.

When a young London man named Kai dies unexpectedly, his boyfriend Richard (Whishaw) is compelled to establish a relationship with Kai’s only living family member, his Cambodian-Chinese mother Junn (Pei-pei), who speaks little English. Junn is overtly intractable and does little to veil her dislike for Richard, who hires a translator to facilitate dialogue in an attempt at healing. The pair slowly develops a rapport, fueled by their mutual yearning for the loss of a loved one.

Hong Khao’s direction is brilliantly stripped down and precise, allowing Whishaw’s and Pei-pei’s performances to shine. Below, he discusses creating an intimate environment on set and how his childhood in the UK informed the film’s narrative.

You’ve talked in the past about how your relationship with language informed the premise for Lilting. Are the communication challenges we see in the film a direct reflection of those you experienced living in the UK?

Language and communication are the main premises for Lilting and it reverberates onto other themes. Some of the events in the film are a version of what I’ve experienced, filtered through a dramatic device. Inevitably there will be certain ideas and details that are from personal experiences, but equally it needs to be shaped and re-worked for it to work. One hopes that in the filtering process the personal nuances can remain, as I think they tend to resonate deeper.

The film relies heavily on brilliant performances from Ben Whishaw and Cheng Pei-pei and this very ethereal relationship that they cultivate. It’s such an elusive chemistry to capture. What was their working relationship like?

The elusiveness you’re talking about is in the premise of the set up. Their characters don’t know one another and are unable to communicate. That in itself presents this dilemma and dramatic dynamic. Their performances are incredible, really vulnerable. And there is strength there too. I find them very mesmerizing to watch.

On a similar note, how much did you deviate from script?

During rehearsal, the script changed here and there. There weren’t any big changes. It was in the editing process that the bigger changes happened. We lost some scenes, shortened others and rearranged them.

There is also a subtle brand of humor that permeates the film. Did you foresee that element in Lilting?

The humor was always there. In a story like this it needs the humor to help give us space to breath. What you get is that one helps to magnify the other, and the emotion resonates a bit more.  

In making such a contemplative drama, how do you avoid overindulging in that intensity? Did you and the team find any respite from the heaviness?

It’s a difficult balance to get right. The shoot was tough for everybody because of the time and budget constraints. I don’t think the subject matter cast a dark shadows over us. If anything the nature of a low budget set made it difficult, in that we can’t get away for one another too easily. Everyone was a real professional and that also made it exciting - it galvanized us.

Shawntai Genell Brown is a freelance blogger, playwright, storyteller and poet living in Detroit, Michigan. She is sharing her experience of Film Forward: Michigan on her blog: Shawntai's Spiral Notebook.

The Arab American National Museum hosted the Film Forward series this Wednesday, bringing Dancing in Jaffa and an opportunity to discuss the issues related to Palestinians and Israelis with director Hilla Medalia. With the museum being a leading hand in healing relations between Arab Americans and their fellow metro Detroiters, it was a fitting and beautiful venue to take a different look at issues muddied with politics and misunderstandings. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the conflict and strides for peace, nor will I give you a cut and paste history lesson. I am not Jewish or Arab to my knowledge. I have never pinned a thumbtack into a map reading “Palestine” nor “Israel.” All the more reason to watch the documentary and hear from families living in Jaffa how the 1948 war persists in everyday life.  Here’s what I do know:

Dancing in Detroit
Thursday nights at Ignite inside MGM Grand, the ballroom dancers and steppers who know every R&B love song unite for good music, over-priced but all the more enticing drinks, walls of fire and rhythmic communion. On the dance floor, there is a rule that women should not turn down any men who ask for a dance. When I first heard this rule crawl out of the DJ’s microphone, I protested. I left the dance floor and growled about it through wine-stained lips with my cousin at the bar. If you have never been to Thursdays at Ignite here is my perspective as a 20-something: It sometimes resembles a daddy-daughter dance. I know I have been invited to ballroom by someone’s great-grandfather. My grandmother drops in from time to time for eye candy. It’s one of the few popular dance floors where ages range somewhat proportionately from 21-75. At the end of my wine glass Jill Scott and Anthony Hamilton wooed me back to the dance floor. I agreed to a dance with the main instructor - a tall, smiling man in slacks and tie with gold-rimmed tinted glasses and a grey patch spiraling into his texturized hair. Within minutes he took me from my basic ballroom-step to checking to make sure my dress could handle wind gusts from twirls and newly-learned footwork. I fell in love with dance. I fell in love with letting a stranger of any age lead me through a song. Mostly I fell in love with the thrill of communicating, the moving and therapeutic body language of ballroom.  I still know two men famous for their misplaced hands and bum grabs, and my protest holds strong when they propose dancing. To all others, “I would love to.”

Dancing with Jaffa
In the film, Pierre Dulaine, who authored the acclaimed Dancing Classrooms program which inspired Take the Lead, walks out of yet another Jaffa middle school proclaiming that he cannot teach this group of students. He had returned home for the first time since his family left Jaffa when he was four. He had returned with a mission change Jewish and Arab relations through ballroom dance. But why literally dance around the issues?

“When a human being dances with another human being something happens,” Dulain said at the head of the film. He professed that dance makes you get to know another person in a way he cannot explain, but he needed people willing to dance together. The idea of dancing with another gender grossed all of the grade-school kids out, but learning Jewish students would be partnered with Arab students for the pending dance competition completely turned their stomachs.

Would you ask for a dance with “the enemy?”
On Nakba Day, the Arab children paid respects to those who lost their lives trying to keep Palestine, while in another classroom in Jaffa the Jewish children stood honoring what they know as Independence Day. Within just a few weeks these children would need to dance together well enough to impress judges and gain their school a coveted trophy. “Ballroom dancing builds trust,” Dulaine explained to a cab driver who said he trusts no one since his friends died in Gaza. The trust was enough to change the students in  ways only watching the documentary can fully explain. That change flowed through bloodlines, bringing together Jewish and Arab parents, reshaping adolescent love interests, and lifting confidence in the youth. It seemed to reshape the audience as well.

Most screeners at the AANM seemed to be anticipating a heated discussion considering the drear atmosphere of Gaza right now, but the film focused on the children who somehow in their apprehension managed to balance learning Rumba and Tango while juggling the stereotypes they entered the dance space with and moving in sync with the human they were reluctant to touch weeks prior. To me, it’s the multiple hurdles we see the youth leap over that moves Dancing in Jaffa out of the box of the Israeli-Palestinian conversation and into all conversations of polarized groups sharing space. Even more so, the film offered stories of hope - the kinds that come from allowing an unlikely human to lead you from a stagnant point in life into a world that spins.

After the dance
During the discussing following the screening, Medalia said she chooses her subject matter for films to “give a face to the conflict of other issues, social issues” that she feels should be talked about. That translated for one audience member and Jaffa native unhappy with the government of his birthplace. “If we dialogue with each other,” he said, “then our government cannot say anything to us.”

The power truly is in the dialogue. This film shows how powerful a language dance can be. Once the children began dancing, they also began practicing, visiting each other's worlds, and asking one another questions. They began seeking truth and camaraderie.

I can’t help but wonder how a swing step between US Muslims and your average non-Muslim Americans might change the conversation about the Middle East and national security. How might our  Southern border look different if patrollers danced with immigrants and refugees? Would we have films like Fruitvale Station or Valentine Road if police fox trotted with young Black men or White Supremacists were taught to ask transgender women to dance? Perhaps we would. When Medalia spoke with a group of students at Detroit School of the Arts about using dance to mend divides in Detroit, they seemed doubtful. The kids were doubtful in Jaffa, too, Medalia said.

Dulaine told the parents of Jaffa’s Dancing Classrooms students that the students needed to learn more than the steps to the dance for change to happen. A teacher at one of the film’s featured schools reiterated this to her students: that they each must be a good person, and prove it.

We can all become better by joining the ongoing conversation as Film Forward continues to travel. I know you have questions. Ask Medalia Tuesday, Sept 30, at the Library Gallery in Ann Arbor. Her film will screen at 7pm in room 100 of the Graduate Student Library. A discussion will follow, and more talk about all of the Sundance Institute films, including Dancing in Jaffa may be found by searching #FilmForward on Twitter, joining Film Forward on Facebook or visiting sundance.org/filmforward.

Seven million people live in Hong Kong, an area that’s just half the size of Rhode Island. The waterfront skyline is a mashup of skyscrapers and mountains. The humidity makes the air heavy and still. Neon lights - whether running along the sides of gigantic buildings or shining in shop windows - are everywhere you look. And so are the people - Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Sri Lankan, Indian, expat bankers from the Western Hemisphere, and too many others to list. So, when our flight landed with a handful of staff and filmmakers to present the Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects to “Asia’s World City,” we didn’t know what to expect.

Also unpredictable was the audience response to the program of films, filmmaker discussions, live music, and events. We presented films ranging from Skeleton Twins (with Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader as siblings who share both humor and pain) to Fishing Without Nets (an account of a Somali man who turns to piracy to survive) to The Case Against 8 (the documentary account of  two gay couples appealing California’s Proposition 8 to the Supreme Court). Infinitely Polar Bear, Life After Beth, Wish I Was Here, and God Help the Girl rounded out the eclectic program. And without exception, the theatres were full and the audiences were delighted.

The spirit of the series was evident during a panel discussion that brought Hong Kong filmmakers and film lovers together with the featured filmmakers, Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper, and series manager Bede Chang. What follows is a summary of questions from the audience and paraphrased answers from the filmmakers. And while the words of wisdom shared may have a familiar ring, The Case Against 8 co-director Ryan White acknowledged that friendly reminders are always a good thing. “We should all remind each other of this advice as we go on,” he said. “Even for established filmmakers, it’s too easy to forget!”

What is Your Advice for Getting Started?

Don’t talk yourself out of it. Keep your foot on the gas. Don’t get scared of what you don’t know. –Maya Forbes, Infinitely Polar Bear

The bad news is that it’s going to be harder than you think it’s going to be. The good news is that you can figure it out. –Ben Cotner, The Case Against 8

There is no one way to start. I made a lot of short films that were not very good, actually. Finding a community is really important – finding those people whom you like and respect and you want to work with is a big deal. Build your tag team and embrace the collaborative nature of it...you get to lead and inspire your gang. –Craig Johnson, The Skeleton Twins

Don’t rush too much to make the film – remember that you’re telling a story about people. So much of documentary filmmaking is about managing personal dynamics. Sometimes it’s about knowing when not to film in order to support your subjects through the experience. –Ryan White, The Case Against 8

How Does Casting Affect Your Film?

With a known actor, it’s easier to access financing and you can get your film made. And it’s your job to make other talented people fall in love with your project. Actors are looking for roles with depth and authenticity, and those roles are not as easily found in the studio world. All of this being true, the most important thing is to cast for the character – sometimes the most famous actor is not right for the role. –Maya Forbes, Infinitely Polar Bear

What is the most challenging thing about transitioning from short to feature-length?

Realizing that your job becomes more about inspiring and motivating a bigger group of people around your story. –Cutter Hodierne, Fishing Without Nets

Editing is a much bigger challenge with a feature. –Craig Johnson, Skeleton Twins

We shot for five years and amassed 600 hours of footage. So yes, editing was a challenge. –Ben Cotner, The Case Against 8 

Shawntai Genell Brown is a freelance blogger, playwright, storyteller and poet living in Detroit, Michigan. She is sharing her experience of Film Forward: Michigan on her blog: Shawntai's Spiral Notebook.

Last night at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History, Detroiters kept the moderator dancing the mic around the room, giving voices with something to say a chance with the talking stick. The dialogue was seasoned with a fresh screening of Fruitvale Station, the re-enacted account of Oscar Grant’s life leading up to his murder - which went down in the court records as involuntary manslaughter. When a police officer faces only 11 months in prison for killing an unarmed and handcuffed 22-year-old father on video, a conversation is to be had. And when that young man is black and the officer is white, a national conversation in necessary because it echoes the sentiments of many communities sick of burying their young for police relations.

Sultan Sharrief and Meredith Lavitt led the discussion. The most common response to the film was how black men like Grant are devalued, not seen as human or relatable, and are thrown away by society because of media portrayal, fear birthed by racism, and lack of self-awareness. I expected these comments as they have led the discussions about Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown.  We went deeper. Moira Griffin expressed that the educational system we rely on to learn about black history leaves out the countless rebellions of black slaves, black freedom fighters, Civil Rights leaders beyond Dr. King and Rosa Parks, or even the history of African descendants in the Americas prior to slavery, British or Spanish settlements. This lack of historical knowledge is detrimental image and understanding of black people groups. For centuries the black race has been bullied, and the results are those of anyone who may have been bullied: aggressive, low-esteemed, isolated, misunderstood, and neglected - but empowered.

Sharrief and many audience members didn’t let the somber ending of Fruitvale Station or the life of Grant sour them. Instead Sharrief posed the question “How are you using your own power?” He said he empowers his film students through art, and challenges them to use their art, words and talents to  shape situations with the power they have. There is a response that youth can have despite what they encounter with police. Social media, as in the story of Grant, grants the average citizen who is not a journalist or an officer of the law the power to tell the news from their perspective. How would the Oscar Grant trial have been different without video uploads of his death by fellow passengers on their train? Perhaps there would not have been a trial at all.

An audience member challenged whether social media is enough, pointing out that while everyone recorded, no one intervened to save Grant and his friends that evening at the Fruitvale stop. A black Detroit police officer in the audience shared his perspective (at my rude but necessary nudging), reminding us that he faces peer pressure on the job daily. While people of color are in fear of police, he asserted that the white officer who killed Grant was “operating out of an element of fear.” The California officer’s fear began before the ordeal - as he was carrying a gun when he should have only been armed with a taser. That fear is shaped by the media, but also by the officer being in an unfamiliar setting where he is the minority in the community he serves. Our officers need more training to eliminate prejudice and unwarranted fear. The Detroit officer also talked about needing to have control of interactions with citizens, managing his team members who may have biases or agendas, and managing his peers. He explained that, for him, police and the citizens he protects is not an “us and them” situation. He is a part of the community - the black community and Detroit community.

Detroit wasn’t the only one on the mic. An Australian visitor in the audience compared the disproportionate prison rates of blacks in the US to the similarly horrid incarceration of  Aboriginal people in his home.

Azeezah Ford, one audience member, expressed afterward that Lavitt’s comments consistently referred to youth like Grant, Martin and many others as “our children” in “our community.” When people who are not of color take a powerful stance on issues that seemingly used to only matter to mostly blacks and latinos, it feels like things are moving forward. It feels like Oscar Grant didn’t die without power.

The conversation does not end. You can catch another discussion of Fruitvale Station tomorrow at UM-Dearborn at 11am. Feel free to talk back and join the nationwide conversation on Twitter by searching #FilmForward or following me @sb_Diztinction.

Shawntai Genell Brown is a freelance blogger, playwright, storyteller and poet living in Detroit, Michigan. She is sharing her experience of Film Forward: Michigan on her blog: Shawntai's Spiral Notebook.

Preparing to meet Latisha
It started sweet. I walked into a sparse but eager room at the U-M Detroit Center Tuesday afternoon and spotted joy: cranberry oatmeal cookies! If you know me, you know that Tuesday is a holiday – TuesdaySaturday. It’s a tradition between friends, created by myself and best friend @NaidraWalls, that occurs every Tuesday for those who work weekends and are devoid of a proper care-free Saturday. As with the tradition of TuesdaySaturday, I decided the screening of Valentine Road at the UMD Center would check off two of my holiday to-dos: supporting a local community and treating myself to something yummy. Those of us who showed for the film introduced ourselves over joyous chewing and proclamations of cookies no one should miss devouring. Maybe we all knew we would need to fill our stomachs ahead of the film, and that the feelings to come would require our full energy and a solid gut.

You don’t have to be familiar with the murder of Larry Latisha King to know the story: a person who is perceived to be drastically different and a societal ill is murdered by someone in their community. We all know a story like this: Matthew Shepherd, Trayvon Martin, James Craig Anderson, etc. When I asked Valentine Road director Marta Cunningham why she chose to tell the Oxnard, Calif. story she said she became angry that no one cared about this kid who did nothing but try to express himself. To start the film, she asked us to recall what it was like to be an eighth grader. I was reciting Animaniacs lines, making origami out of notes passed between my friends, balling all of my confused love feelings for anyone attractive into 1-page poems. Even though I faced death close to home in my family, I was worried about catching cancer from chewing gum and ducking under windows on New Year’s Eve while watching A Christmas Story with my dad and siblings. I wasn’t worried about being shot by a classmate.

Meeting Brandon instead
In 2008, Feb. 14 Latisha died from difficulties inflicted by a gunshot to the head at the hand of her classmate, Brandon McInerney, because she expressed she had a crush on him. Before you hate Brandon, remember that he is in the eighth grade. Know that Brandon’s advocates faded away and that his community supported his anger and prejudice, if not his actions. Also, know that as a 14-year-old, I never shot a boy or girl for an unwanted and perhaps embarrassing cat call.

The film is about Latisha, but also largely about Brandon’s deplorable past that helped to form his hatred into action. Cunningham’s documenting of Brandon’s life brings in issues of child abuse and neglect, domestic partner violence, hate crimes, Nazi philosophy, and homelessness. Remember that Brandon is 14.

Latisha’s life had no shortage of abuse, neglect and misunderstanding either. Yet, the community put their sympathy and support with Brandon. In Cunningham’s opinion, the jury did also.

Digesting
Following the film, Cunningham spoke about Larry “LaTisha” King with full respect, calling her by her prefered name – something that lacked in the interviews of the documentary. Despite evidence from her closest friends that Latisha prefered the name she gave herself over her legal name, Lawrence, nearly everyone referred to her as “Larry.” The repetition of “Larry” symbolized the overall intolerance of the community on the issues of sexuality, gender, race and advocacy. The community consensus seemed to be that King should have never been dressing “like a girl,” expressing her crush or asking anyone to call her by a girl name. Cunningham said no one was truly advocating for King – not even the teacher who gave her a prom dress. I know this is true for many LGBTQ youth in Detroit in particular.

Heading home
Walking to my car after the screening, I thought about one of my poetry students from last year – an outgoing yet timid seamstress and published author about the same weight and height of Latisha, although slightly older. This student also happened to be homeless for a period of time, taunted by some family and classmates, and brave in a way I never had to be at his age. Last year, he started a Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school and became the school’s first known drag performer. Know that he is 15.

Many DPS schools lack a Gay-Straight Alliance and staff members who will openly and actively strive to create safe environments for all students. Additionally, queer and transgender youth make up a large population of our homeless people in this city. Only a handful of organizations in Detroit seek to serve, protect and support LGBTQ youth. Our community has a continued issue with how we respond to hate crimes.

WXYZ Detroit posted video to the website covering the mob attack of Christian Howard, a young gay man, at Motor City Pride earlier this year. I forget that people don’t know what it’s like to be gay, to be a youth, to be different even among those who look most like you. My reminder was in the comments, which is where I let my eyes wander through the shadow of death for White Supremacy proclamations and the melting pot of racism, classism and extraordinary ignorance. “He looks like a tranny. He probably tried to solicit oral sex from the straight guys and after being turned down, the tranny became violent. Gays are violent, especially when they are doing meth and they want to perform crazy sex acts in public,” DoctaFarkward felt the need to publicly post. And while his inflammatory comments don’t represent the feelings of all Detroiters, I have heard similar words come from the mouths of people in my family, my students, neighbors, acquaintances and business clients, all unaware that they were speaking to a queer woman.

Questions for Thursday
You didn’t miss your opportunity to see the film. Film Forward (the Sundance series responsible for touring the film and its director around Michigan) will screen Valentine Road at the Michigan Theater on Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7:30pm. Come with questions for Marta Cunningham. Come with questions that challenge our communities to do better. Here are a few questions that came up for me:

• Should juveniles be tried as adults?
• How do we address racism, homophobia, transphobia and hate?
• In what ways does our culture, media and education support violence toward LGBTQ people?
• How do we identify and support children in abusive households?
• How does media, faith, and cognitive dissonance play a role in trial verdicts?
• Why oh why are we still victim blaming?

Feel free to talk back and join the nationwide conversation by searching #FilmForward or following me @sb_Diztinction. Happy TuesdaySaturday, folks!

In 2014, most every filmmaker knows that it’s important to build a website for your project. But how many of us know enough about programming or design to create a site that serves as a fitting representation of the project, let alone one that functions as a tool for both marketing and audience building? “As you add networks and outlets to your film’s identity, and as that footprint grows and grows, one of the first things that slips, because most of us can’t afford a full-time graphic designer, is the look and feel of your film,” said Joseph Beyer, director of digital initiatives for Sundance Institute. At IFP week in New York, the #ArtistServices panel entitled “Designing Your Look and Feel—What We Love Right Now” strove to address that very slippage.

Jeremy Schwartz of web publishing platform Squarespace advocated for very simple, straightforward, and aesthetically striking sites. “You have to be crystal clear about the goals of your website,” he said, while keeping in mind that “the goals are going to change over the life-cycle of your production.” He compared your site’s functionality over the course of a project’s life to a classic three-act story. First comes the set-up, when you develop an audience by encouraging visitors to sign up for email updates, follow posts on social media, or back the project via funding sites like Kickstarter. Next comes the confrontation, i.e. the “mobilizing of the audience,” via opportunities to buy tickets and spread the word. The third act brings resolution, when you deepen audience interaction beyond the experience of the film itself by selling DVDs and merchandize, or, in the case of documentaries, directing people to resources where they can learn or do more. Throughout this cycle, Schwartz said it’s crucial to not clutter the homepage with too much text or information. “A single really beautiful photo, a logo, and a tagline is kind of all you need for a really great website,” he said. 

Taking things a step further, Jamie Wilkinson talked of how filmmakers can reach viewers directly via the VHX self-distribution platform for digital video—an approach recently taken by films such as Dave Grohl’s Sound City and Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color. “The idea is really simple: websites are an under-utilized resource that filmmakers and distributors can use to reach fans directly,” he said. “You can actually have a relationship with your audience, you can get data about what’s happening, and you can deliver a high-quality watching experience without having to rely on somebody else.”

Wilkinson said the look and feel of VHX templates were inspired by the elegant and fluid approaches of Squarespace and Tumblr, and can be similarly direct. Above the fold, i.e. what appears upon the landing on a site, he advocates for “a really clear call to action,” such as buying, streaming, or funding the film, with supplemental information and offers viewable once you scroll down. One of the advantages of VHX over outlets such as iTunes or Netflix is their ability to offer bonus materials like deleted scenes or behind-the-scenes footage—“the digital equivalent of the deluxe BluRay,” Wilkinson said. It offers more opportunities for fans to engage with a film while also opening avenues for additional revenue, which can be crucial for making self-distribution a profitable enterprise. 

While this business can seem at best like a sideline concern, or at worst a distraction from the filmmaking itself, Beyer advocated for thinking of it as all part of the same artistic project. “If you look at it as a drag, that you have to come up with all of this stuff and upload it, yeah, it’s going to be a big pain in the ass,” he said. “But if you look at it as an extension of your narrative, then the world opens up to you and it becomes an amazing storytelling tool. Things gets better and better every year as artists are embracing the power that they have to extend storytelling into the marketing and distribution of their films.”

Few people go into the business of making films because of a passion for file conversions or frame rate quandaries. But the truth is that every filmmaker who wants his or her film to be seen, screened, distributed, or streamed needs to contend with these and other issues pertaining to the swiftly changing world of digital deliverables. Gone are the days when reels of 35mm film were all you needed to show your film; now you need to juggle between ProRes files, HDCAMs, and DCPs—and that’s just for starters. Yet solving for these matters can go a ways toward determining how easily and widely your film can make its way into the world.       

As part of the #ArtistServices Workshop at IFP Week in New York, attendees took a crash-course in post-production dissemination from four professionals who work at different stages of the process at a panel cheekily but accurately entitled, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Digital Deliverables (But Were Afraid to Ask).” Jonathan Marlow, co-founder of online exhibitor Fandor, tried to soften the impact of what was in store, saying, “We won’t be dry or technical.” Which prompted Emily Eddey, Senior Producer at post-production house Light Iron, to level with the audience at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium. “This is going to be very dry and technical,” she said. It was certainly the latter, but the panelists also managed to be entertaining enough to help the medicine go down. 

Eddey started things off with a slideshow presentation of how to prepare films for a life outside of your home hard drive. She itemized the most requested deliverables (from sound files to BluRay masters) for both festivals and online streaming services like iTunes and Netflix, and estimated costs at reputable post-production houses such as her own. She also noted how festivals increasingly prefer DCP over ProRes and HDCAM, and advised against sending encrypted files. “The chances of your DCP not playing at a festival because it’s locked and the key doesn’t work are far greater than some guy taking a DCP hard drive and plugging it into a computer and stealing it,” she said. “The goal is to play in as many festivals as possible, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been woken up at 2 a.m. for a festival going on in Holland, and the key’s not working and they’re missing a screening, and there goes 500 viewers. It’s just not worth it.”

She also advised to budget for these post-production matters in the pre-production phase of your project, which was also echoed by Paul O’Neil of Premiere Digital, who helps disseminate films via the distribution portal Quiver. Beyond budgeting funds toward preparing deliverables, O’Neil said that you should set aside three months for the process. “It’s not a month-long process. Even though your movie is made and is sitting there, it’s going to make more money if you allot three months to the process,” he said. “If you’re trying to release your movie a month from today, I guarantee you’re going to have a headache and hate your distribution partner.” O’Neil walked attendees through a checklist of assets required for the major digital platforms, including a trailer, closed captioning, chapters, metadata, audio, subtitles and bonus content. As for what to submit to Quiver for getting things in order, “we want exactly what you shot in,” he said. “If your film was shot in 5.1, send us the 5.1. Let us do the conversion, so that if we mess it up we can go back and redo it without having to bug you about it.” He also talked about the need to submit art that’s clear of credits, pricing, and festival laurels, which are rejected by outlets such as iTunes who present films on smaller devices where legibility can be a challenge. “Do these minimal things for art, because if you want your feature to be promoted like every other studio feature, you need this stuff,” he said. “Make it look like the big boys.”   

At the other end of the spectrum, Marlow talked about how Fandor takes a very different approach to digital distribution, accepting whatever format is most readily available—including even VHS—and absorbing the costs of transferring and disseminating. “We work with everything,” he said. “We’ll put up films that every other service has rejected, and sometimes for good reason,” yet it creates a platform for hard-to-see films and financially challenged filmmakers. “If you can do all of the things that have been said you should do it. These folks are professionals, you should definitely talk to them,” Marlow said. “And then when you realize you have no money you should talk to me.”

Earlier this year, Sundance Institute announced the formation of the Episodic Story Lab dedicated to supporting writers and creators of series for television and online platforms, and just yesterday, we revealed the 10 writers selected for the inaugural Lab taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from September 27 through October 2. Every applicant for the program was required to submit a spec pilot and series overview as the basis of their creative work at the Lab. The selected writers are: Desiree Akhavan (Switch Hitter); Peter Biegen (Small Change); Nate Crocker (Scar Tissue); Katori Hall (The Dial); Barry Jenkins (Radical); Nick Keetch (Borderline); Lisa Kron (The Schaeffers); Crystal Liu (The White Sheep); Heather Marion (Bury Me); and Matt Young (Still). Learn more about their projects here.

The Episodic Story Lab marks the Instiute's inceptive venture into supporting episodic content, however, a lineage of alumni continue to find success in the medium. To that end, the new Lab flows with a growing trend of independent filmmakers taking their turns in episodic storytelling, where they’re discovering a lucrative alternative to film with no detriment to creativity. As we did back in March upon the Lab's original announcement, let's once again look at some of the Sundance-supported filmmakers who have successfully taken up the gauntlet outside of the theater. 

Cary Fukunaga

Fukunaga took home the Directing Award at the 2009 Festival for Sin Nombre, which was also supported by the Directors Lab, and was the director behind the hit HBO series True Detective, for which he won an Emmy.

Mike White

Mike White has honed his chops at the Festival as a writer, director, and actor (Chuck and Buck, Year of the Dog), but is also well-versed beyond the silver screen having written for Enlightened, Dawson’s Creek, and Freaks and Geeks, among other shows.

Jill Soloway

Between her short film Una Hora Por Favora and her subsequent feature directorial debut Afternoon Delight, Soloway has shown off her dexterity in any number of mediums. She’s written for, among others, television shows including How to Make it in America, United States of Tara, and Six Feet Under. Soloway most recently worked with Amazon Studios on the new Web show Transparent, and you can watch the pilot episode for free here.

Lisa Cholodenko

Beyond her work on High Art, Laurel Canyon, and The Kids Are All Right, each of which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Cholodenko has directed episodes for series including Hung, The L Word, and Six Feet Under.

Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. has directed three Sundance Film Festival selections, but is perhaps most acclaimed for his comedy-drama series Louie, for which he writes and directs.

Jason Katims

Katims attended the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab exactly two decades ago with The Pallbearer and has since worked on television series including Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, and Roswell.

Azazel Jacobs

Jacobs most recently screened Terri at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has donated his time as a Creative Advisor at numerous Sundance Instiute Labs. His new show Doll & Em premiered earlier this year on HBO and stars Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells.

Alex O'Flinn is the recipient of the 2014 Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship. He most recently edited "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night," which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. As part of his fellowship year, he will work with editor mentors Dylan Tichenor (co-editor, "Zero Dark Thirty"), Stephen Mirrione ("The Hunger Games"), and Douglas Crise ("Spring Breakers").

In April, I got a phone call from Michelle Satter and Ilyse McKimmie informing me that I was the 2014 recipient of the Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship. I had just edited a film for my friend and director, Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night), and during the editing process we were constantly referring to Menke and Tarantino – their style, rhythm, bold choices, and overall amazing collaboration on so many films. To be the recipient of an editing award with her name is beyond an honor and one that reminds me every day to challenge myself within my craft. But it’s hard to challenge oneself without the support of others. Do you work out as hard at the gym by yourself as you do with a trainer? For me, the answer is no. It’s hard to practice in a vacuum. You need a project to be creative on, and collaborators to exchange ideas with and challenge you (and you them). The project gives the work purpose, and I think purpose is one of the most important motivators. Luckily, as a recipient of the fellowship, I got the opportunity to attend the Sundance Institute June Directors Lab as an editor, which allowed me to really dive in deep with some amazing projects for a month.

If you take the competition element out of the equation, the Sundance Directors Lab is kind of like a film version of Project Runway. Each week, a director is given a short amount of time to rehearse, shoot, and edit a scene from their script in progress. The time is short to say the least, and the cut-off time is strictly enforced. There are “make it work” moments, moments of incredible inspiration, and, every couple of hours or so, Ed Harris, Catherine Hardwicke, or Robert Redford might stop by to watch you work and give some notes. There’s not a lot of time to second-guess anything, and that’s the point. Go with your gut, take a risk, and if you fall down, you get back up because you have to. It’s a one-of-a-kind environment where everyone present at the Labs is there to support, but also to challenge a director to dive deeper into their story and vision in order to make a film that not only entertains, but also says something. Challenge is the key part of the equation. You can’t stay in the safe zone if you want to make something interesting. You also can’t push yourself out of the comfort zone or make a film without collaborators and people pushing you hard to move closer towards a vision.

As an editor, I was paired with two directors, Johnny Ma and Jordana Spiro, who both came with scripts that were pretty killer. Before the Lab, I was reading the scripts over and over, watching reference films, practicing my AVID skills – I wanted to be prepared. When the day came to start cutting with both directors, I was really welcomed as a collaborator; as an editor, this is the thing you really hope for more than anything. When the director trusts you to help them elevate their vision, the process is addictive. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences to see a scene that really works up on the big screen after hours of work.

But the Lab is not a normal working environment, as you are working with two directors simultaneously. The biggest challenge with this is learning how to switch gears between two totally different projects in a matter of minutes. I would spend an entire day cutting with Johnny, and then I’d meet Jordana, watch dailies, and we’d start on her scene the next day. The luxury of being on a feature film is that you get to 100% live in the world of that film 24/7 and not have to shift gears. At the Labs there is not this luxury, but the benefit is that you get to learn from more than one director at once – about performance, blocking, tone – which are things you will retain forever.

As an editor, I’ve learned that you must always be expanding your vocabulary for how to shape a performance, tone or motivate edits through blocking. This is the language that you will use to communicate certain things to the director while working, and the more of it you have, the better the communication will be. It’s also important to bring the knowledge you have from outside of the cutting room into the cutting room. Jordana asked me to watch a film before attending the labs called Oslo, August 31st. I learned some incredible editing lessons from watching the film, and it helped me understand her vision for her film. Johnny turned me on to old Chinese parlor music from the mid-20th century, and that really served as a motivator to us in how to edit one of the big scenes we were working on. Anything that makes you feel something – film or not – is fair game.

My experience at the Labs was built from many small moments of inspiration and tough lessons, that when combined created something bigger than all of the individual pieces. But all of these lessons come while working hard. Really, really hard. There is no waiting around for inspiration to strike. Everything about the program is set up to make sure everyone involved gives it their all. The benefit is that in the process you find yourself reinvigorated in your journey as a storyteller.

Nothing worth doing is ever easy, and I feel that this is something that often gets lost in many interviews with artists and successful people in a particular craft. I am here to tell you that you are not alone in asking, “Is it really this tough?” The answer is yes, and it is for everybody. This stuff is hard, man! I made BAD movies on my own, I went to film school, I was an Assistant Editor on the night shift, I edited lots of shorts, lots of web content, got discouraged countless times, questioned my life decisions countless times, and it all led me to now, where I feel like I am just beginning to understand what being an editor truly is. The point is, the journey is long, and it’s important to remember that and not get discouraged by that. While the Lab is only a month long, it instills the idea and thematic importance of being willing to go on a journey, and that to make something that is meaningful requires time, effort, and the willingness to fail and start again when all the muscles in your body are begging you to stop.

It is now September, and I’m in the thick of editing a new feature. Every day while editing I do something that inevitably reminds me of something I learned at the Lab. It’s an experience that has forever implanted itself into my editing DNA.

A world bereft of compassion is an unnecessarily cruel one. For sufferers of Alzheimer’s, their families, and their caregivers, such a world is far too often the reality. When Banker White’s mother Pam began experiencing the initial symptoms of Alzheimer’s, rather than withdrawing, he committed to opening the doors to the merciless disease by documenting her struggle in what would become The Genius of Marian, an elegiac documentary that depicted Pam and her family’s new existence (and an extension of Pam's unfinished book about her own mother Marian Wlliams Steele, who passed from Alzheimer's years prior). But the point at which the influence of most documentaries typically ends – at the film’s denouement – was where Banker’s vision continued.

The Genius of Caring is Banker White’s new web-based project aimed at building a community of and for caregivers where dialogue flows freely about an otherwise isolating disease. The ultimate goal: compassion and understanding. The site is currently in beta and will need a successful Kickstarter campaign to continue to tell the stories of caregivers from across the country. Below, Banker took some time to chat about the impetus for the project and his own intensely personal experiences with Alzheimer’s.

The Genius of Marian is an incredibly poignant portrayal of Alzheimer’s, but The Genius of Caring looks to achieve something different. What is your hope for this web project?

Banker White: The process for caring for a loved one with a terminal illness is humbling and isolating – isolating at a time when you need the most support. The process of producing The Genius of Marian helped us communicate better as a family and sharing our experience publically has connected us with so many individuals and families who are going through the same thing. The response since the broadcast has been overwhelming – so many individuals and families reaching out, sending pictures and sharing both heartbreaking and beautiful stories. It has definitely confirmed why there is a real need for this kind of project. Many people who have reached out to us will be profiled on the site and have expressed a hope that what they learned might have value for others.

The goal with the site is to create a platform for people to feel safe sharing their experiences and to facilitate making connections and building community with others going through the same thing. This site, www.geniusofcaring.com, is now live and launched as a beta version of the site with a portrait of my father Ed White caring for my mother Pam. We are scheduled to release five more documentary portraits to the site profiling caregivers from all over the country. We are choosing stories that reflect a diversity of experience profiling spouses, adult children, siblings and paid care in a caregiving role and that are from diverse backgrounds in terms of geography, access to care, and available resources.

Reflecting on your intimate experiences with Alzheimer’s, what do you find to be the greatest misconception about the disease?

BW: People are so terrified by dementia that it creates so many misconceptions. It is even a part of colloquial speak to say I don’t want to go, ‘like that.’ When there is that much fear, we don’t looks closely and we don’t learn on so many levels. Many people still believe it is just loss of short term memory or senility and is a natural part of the aging process. Much in the same way heart disease and cancer were regarded 50 years ago. The medical community even admits it was not universally accepted as a disease until the mid-80s. So people seem also not to believe the numbers; that 50% of people over 85 are experiencing some form of dementia, that it is a terminal disease, that it is the number 6 leading cause of death, etc. What we do know is with the baby boomers aging this disease will become a reality for almost everyone in this country.

Despite these numbers I hope we can also learn to not run away from this and move towards educating ourselves to the reality of caring for someone with dementia, because the disease is much more complicated than memory loss. It comes with complex behavioral changes, severe physical impairment in the later stages, and it is care intensive and an incredible burden on the caregiving team – physically, financially and emotionally. It was our experience, and I have heard from so many others, that there is also humor and lightness in dementia, that you are asked to be in the moment with your loved one and it teaches you patience and compassion.  

How much was the genesis of this project based of your own desire to have a community with which to share your challenges?

BW: What is absolutely true is that a strong community of friends and a network of support is what helped us through it as a family. We had a close group of friends who supported my parents and naturally transitioned into a kind of caregiving role, but it took time. Many people did not know how to react to my mother’s diagnosis. She was the first in their peer group to go through this because she was so young (officially diagnosed at 61, but was going through difficult changes for 5-6 years leading up to the diagnosis).

When it did ‘get out’ that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it was like they lost at least half of their friends. People just did not know what to do. And because my Mom was so traumatized by the stigma surrounding the disease, we did not ask for help or really communicate well at all with our network of friends. Eventually many of these people did come back into their life and still today are a big part of how we are supported. Some of that support is as simple as still including them in their life, coming by to have lunch with my mother and giving my father a couple hours off.

My father talks about this very specifically in Chapter 2 of the portrait on the Genius of Caring site: http://geniusofcaring.com/portraits

I think one of the reasons for the change is that we became more vocal – actually moved from a place of secrecy to public advocacy. Through the film, interviews, and writing everyone in the family has done, people maybe understood what we were going through better and reached back out. So the site hopefully provides a space for people to share, but also for people to learn, so our understanding as families, communities, and as a country of what this experience is like becomes much deeper.

You attended last year’s New Frontier Story Lab with this project. Is there one particular resonant experience or lesson that you gleaned from that process that you could share?

BW: The Lab was such an amazing experience – so many talented artists and advisors from many different disciplines. The big take away for me was to strip away all the ideas and infinite potential that could be explored to the essence of the project: What is driving you to do this work? And then rebuild confidently from there.

That this project had real utility for people going through this was essential. We worked with caregivers, geriatricians, and social workers after the Lab to both develop the set of prompts and questions and to build a space that felt uniquely safe for families to share and connect with others.

Prior to its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, The Skeleton Twins had been billed as a non-comedy starring Saturday Night Live vets Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as estranged siblings. As it turns out, this description isn’t quite accurate. While the film is at times a very affecting and penetrating drama, it also contains as many genuine laughs as any “drama” in recent memory. Director Craig Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Black Swan’s Mark Heyman, effortlessly balances the film’s tricky tone.

Hader is a revelation as Milo, a gay, depressed struggling actor and Wiig delivers perhaps her most impressive work as Maggie, a dental hygienist dissatisfied with her marriage to her uncomplicated husband (Luke Wilson, in a fine comic performance). The siblings live on opposite coasts but reconnect after a decade when both contemplate suicide on the same day. The well-honed chemistry between Hader and Wiig comes to a head in what will likely become known as the film’s set piece — Hader’s epic lip-syncing performance set to Starship’s power ballad “Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now” in an attempt to reaffirm the bond between the siblings.

Hader, however, wasn’t Johnson’s first choice to play Milo. “We were thinking about some people and I must say, Bill wasn’t on my initial radar,” the director revealed during the Q&A after the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last January. Johnson said it was casting director Avy Kaufman who suggested the comic after she was impressed by a dramatic reading opposite Kate Winslet.

Johnson said he and Hader met at a bar for a drink and soon realized they were both big movie nerds. “We kind of geeked out a little talking about directors, and I kind of had this idea that Milo is a little bit more of a nerd,” he explained. “Then I thought, ‘We’ve found our nerd.’” The Skeleton Twins hits theaters this Friday, September 12. Click here for tickets and showtimes.

Maryam al-Khawaja, the notable Bahraini human rights defender and subject of We Are the Giant (2014 SFF), was arrested August 30 upon her arrival in Manama, Bahrain, on charges of assaulting a police officer – which she refutes – and other alleged crimes related to her work in human rights. Maryam was returning to see her ailing father and longtime activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is currently on a hunger strike while serving a lifetime sentence for charges stemming from human rights demonstrations in 2011.

Maryam is a dual Bahraini-Danish national, but her Bahraini citizenship has now been stripped, and she is being held in jail for seven days as the government builds a case against her. Now, the film team behind We Are the Giant is soliciting help in spreading awareness around Maryam’s arrest with the goal of pressuring the Bahraini government into her release.

The scene is not dissimilar from the one that played out during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where Maryam’s presence with We Are the Giant in Park City, Utah, provided impetus for the release of her sister Zainab, who served much of last year in Isa Town Detention – where Maryam is currently held ­– for peacefully standing her ground against riot police.

Please join us in standing behind Maryam by signing an online petition asking for her release.

“There are two kinds of heroes. There are heroes who preach, and there are heroes who do. They are the people who don’t ask you to go and stand in the front lines; they do it themselves.” –Maryam al-Khawaja

#FreeMaryam

As we collectively lament the closing days of summer, a handful of new releases help usher in a promising fall season for indie film. The ever-enigmatic singer-songwriter Willis Earl Beal offers a captivating portrayal of a musician caught in the trap of creative inertia in Memphis, and Belle & Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch officially makes his foray into filmmaking with the pensive musical drama God Help The Girl. Bringing some levity to the month's releases – though still sharp and thoughtful – is Craig Johnson's The Skeleton Twins, which tracks the reunion of estranged twins expertly played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. Below, check out all of the Sundance-supported films hitting theaters this month.

Friday, September 5

Memphis, directed by Tim Sutton

God Help the Girl, directed by Stuart Murdoch

No No: A Dockumentary, directed by Jeffrey Radice

Wetlands, directed by David Wnendt and Guy Edoin

Friday, September 12

The Skeleton Twins, directed by Craig Johnson

The Green Prince, directed by Nadav Schirman

Friday, September 19

20,000 Days On Earth, directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

Friday, September 26

Lilting, directed by Hong Khaou

DVD & Blu-Ray

Tuesday, September 2

They Came Together

Under the Electric Sky

American Promise

Tuesday, September 9

Fed Up

Ida

God’s Pocket

Tuesday, September 23

The Signal

Very Good Girls

Tuesday, September 30

Cold In July

Ivory Tower

Hellion

Something about the notion of Labor Day has always seemed archaic to me. Then again, the guy who questions a day off is no better than the 7^th grader who reminds the teacher that homework hasn’t been collected – exactly 10 seconds before the bell rings. Thank you, young comrade.

In reality, millions of hardworking Americans, whether toiling away at jobs they resent, tolerate, or unabashedly love, deserve a day of rest. And if you’re feeling especially bad about your current line of work, surely these wretched occupations from the films below will bring some levity to the situation. Because, if nothing else, misery loves company. Happy Labor Day.

American Job

Director Chris Smith’s deftness in depicting man’s idiosyncrasies and other inscrutable character blemishes arrived with 1996’s American Job, the narrative precursor to his better-recognized documentary accomplishments American Movie and The Yes Men. In American Job, we are subjected to the tedium of some of America’s most unappealing jobs through the lens of our aimless protagonist Randy Scott, whose helpless disposition is a wry bit of a humor in and of itself. Smith’s shrewd verite filmmaking further advances the film’s comically humdrum atmosphere, leaving us to intermittently pinch ourselves, just to be sure Randy’s reality is not in fact our own.

Roger and Me

Before he became the most recognizable and polarizing figure in documentary film – and before Detroit became the national punch line for America’s economic woes – Michael Moore was just a man meddling in the country’s innumerable issues, hoping to expose some truth. Ok, so nothing has really changed after all. But in Roger and Me, Moore’s first filmmaking effort, we are privy to the simplicity of the man and his camera. In this particular endeavor, Moore’s obligation is to the thousands of Americans out of their jobs thanks to General Motors. A Flint, Michigan, native himself, Moore returns home with a steadfast – and quite humorous – mission to sit down with the man behind the madness, and the head of GM, Roger Smith.

Dirty Work

There is “dirty work,” and then there is the repugnant, nausea-inducing work that the three singular subjects in Dirty Work manage to pursue as both their profession and passion. At times more probing than perhaps desired, this surprisingly accessible documentary explores the (mostly) unenviable worlds of Darrell, a septic tank pumper, Russ, a bull semen collector, and Bernard, an embalmer. Beneath its unpleasant surface lies not only the reality that “someone’s gotta’ do it,” but that someone may actually be happy to do it. Watch it via Sundance #ArtistServices.

Clerks

It would be criminally remiss to omit the most seminal indie film to explore the torment of menial work. Kevin Smith’s Clerks transcends the cult classic label, achieving something closer to the sacred embodiment of independent filmmaking. This lo-fi, indulgently cheesy trailer from ’94 beats any attempt at a film description.

C.O.G.

Kyle Alvarez’s 2013 Sundance Film Festival selection stars a self-effacing Jonathan Groff as a young man who takes up the obscure, and perhaps marginally idyllic, vocation of an apple picker. Based on a David Sedaris short story, Alvarez’s smartly adapted narrative is suffused with undertones of sexual discovery and religious confusion, set to the bucolic milieu of an apple orchard. At the end of its runtime, the idea of fleeing to farm life doesn’t sound bad at all…