Since 1994, all Rwandans share genocide as their central legacy. As they search for a path to long-lasting recovery and peace, discovering—or re-discovering—their common history and cultural identity is essential to moving forward and to consolidating peaceful coexistence. Our goal is to give free and open access to that history in picture and sound.
The Iribia Center for Multimedia Heritage, whose name means “the source,” will gather films, photographs and audio recordings dating from the start of colonial rule in East Africa, more than a century ago, to the present day.
Interview: Brian Stelter and Andrew Rossi of ‘Page One’
Posted on June 28, 2011 at 8:00 am
“Page One” takes us behind the scenes at the New York times in a year of turmoil and transition. We see how its media reporters cover their own industry. We see the release of the first Wikileaks material and how it competes with and is reported on and interpreted by the main-est of the mainstream media. We see how the Times buys out and lays off experienced staff and brings on a college student who has been scooping them with his blog about television news. I sat with director Andrew Rossi and blogger-turned New York Times reporter Brian Stetler in the sunny courtyard of a Washington DC hotel to talk with them about reporting on the reporters and the future of journalism.
A recent law school class was asked how many of them read a paper newspaper every morning and not one hand went up. What does that mean about the future of newspapers and of news?
Stelter: People get the news in different sources. They may be getting links on Twitter or Facebook. As Katrina vanden Heuvel says in the film, there’s lots of information out there. That’s the predicament “Page One” is trying to address.
I thought the most powerful statement in the film was “Daniel Ellsberg needed us. Wikileaks does not.” And yet, the movie shows that reader do need the New York times to digest and interpret and verify the material.
Stelter: In a day where everyone can be a publisher, not everyone can be an editor. The film fundamentally is about editing. You see reporters and editors figuring out what’s news and what’s not news and in the case of Wikileaks, figuring out how to cover someone who is a publisher, but not an editor. Wikileaks does sometimes redact material and decide what not to post, but fundamentally they’re not bringing to bear those judgment calls that journalists are. I love the movie for those scenes with editors where you see them making judgment calls.
We’ve seen new media blow the whistle on failures of old media and old media expose the failures and misrepresentations of new media. Are we going to be in an endless cycle of “gotcha?”
Stelter: That’s an element going forward, one element of a complicated structure. It’s good that we can all truth squad each other. In the film you see the Times trying to decide how to handle a report by NBC news about the end of the Iraq war and eventually deciding not to write about it because it was, I don’t want to say an imagined end but a “mission accomplished” moment.
It was surprising to see in the film the way Brian Williams made NBC’s role a part of the story and fascinating to watch the reaction in the newsroom.
Stelter: It baffles my mind.
How do the changes in media and reporting affect elections and politics?
Stelter: We get more saturated by the day-to-day minutia of the campaigns. It’s easier to write about and follow along. What me may lose there is the broader picture. But the other change is the interactivity. Citizens now can prod journalists to cover the campaign differently. Readers, listeners, viewers can push us to do a better job. We’ve seen some of that already but we will see more going forward. That’s one reason transparency is such a positive force. We can talk back in a way we couldn’t before. I love when readers talk back to me and tell me what to improve on.
I was very intrigued by the use of music in the film. How did you select it?
Rossi: “Paper Tiger” is the song that plays beneath the credits. It’s by Beck. It has a very sort of somber but driving sound and David Carr’s final lines in the film that drive the song are “The New York Times does not need to be a monolith to survive.” I think that is one of the very important messages of the film. There are multiple voices and there shouldn’t be any Zeus character with thunderbolts saying, “This is the only truth that can be known.” “Paper Tiger,” there’s a double entendre because of the word “paper” but it is also an expression the Chinese have for something that seems scary but really is not. Mao used to use that expression to refer to Russia and England as monolithic powers that were really just made of paper. The song has the right audiophilic quality but also a double meaning. Paul Brill did the score. He’s worked a lot on films that treat very serious topics but in ways that are accessible and have an entertainment value. That is the type of palette we were going for in the film.
You include reporters who cover the business side of the media, but you do not include anyone from the business side of the New York Times. Why is that?
Rossi: There’s a high and firm wall between the newsroom and the corporate side. Bill Keller, the executive editor, authorized the project after various discussions and meetings and it was really done under the purview of the newsroom so we really never butt up against the corporate side. I did request an interview with the publisher and CEO, both of whom declined. The film is really trying to look at the journalism involved, though certainly we treat the financial obstacles.
What’s the difference between writing for the web and writing for print?
Stelter: Paper is so permanent, a one time shot to get it right and there’s a high cost to making a correction. If I write something for the web in the afternoon I can make it better all day and then put the final product in the paper. Corrections are the first symbol of us opening ourselves up to the public. This movie is just another form of transparency.
“Louder than a Bomb” is a new documentary about Chicago’s poetry slam competition for high schoolers. Watching these teenagers thrill to finding their own voices and hearing each other’s stories makes it one of the most inspiring films of the year. I spoke to co-director Jon Siskel (nephew of the late critic Gene Siskel) about making the film.
How did you discover the poetry slam competition in Chicago?
My co-director, Greg Jacobs, was driving on the North Side of Chicago on a Saturday night and saw outside this club called The Metro hundreds of kids lined up under this marquee that said “Louder than a Bomb Poetry Slam.” He thought, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, all these kids, every shape size, color, lined up for poetry on a Saturday night.” Greg came in Monday and said, “I think I’ve got our next subject.” We reached out to the founder of Louder than a Bomb Kevin Coval and he invited us to visit a slam and it was really that moment, going to the slam, seeing the kids on stage and the exchange with the audience that was so electrifying — it was one of those things where you know it when you see it. When you get into documentaries you know it is going to be such a long commitment so you’re always kind of cautioning and looking for a way out. “Is something wrong here? Is something not going to work?” But every step of the way it was just better and better and better.
How did you select the kids you were going to focus on?
Our first criteria was that we wanted the best poets. If you’re going to make a movie about a poetry slam, you have to start with that. There are these amazing moments of bravery with other poets who are not shining stars but who get up on stage, paper shaking, not necessarily a great poet but they’re up there pouring their hearts out. But we wanted the poetry to sing and be great.
There were about 40 teams competing at that time. Kevin narrowed it down to a dozen schools. We spent a year hanging out with the kids and part of that year was the first competition we filmed, Nate doing “LeBron James” and Adam doing “Poet Breathe Now.” We heard some stuff that Nova did that was amazing and the Steinmenauts won that year.
What makes a good poem?
I think these kids are writing great poems on paper, but with Slam it’s a combination of really good writing with really good performance. All of our kids in totally different ways do that amazingly well. I think people start giggling when they first see Adam on screen, the hippie kid, dorky, nerdy-ish, but when he gets up on stage he grabs the audience by the throat. And Nova just silences audiences, even in the scene where she’s performing her piece in the classroom about her father, every audience is just holding their breath. She is just devastating. There’s this honesty — I don’t know how they do that. What is so amazing is that it starts in the classroom with this teamwork and so you have Nova putting this stuff out in front of her peers, and Lemar and Big C, putting this very emotional territory in front of people.
Why does poetry make that possible in a way that say, writing an essay does not?
They’re reporting from the streets, talking about things happening around them. “Counting Graves” is this incredibly powerful poem. They create personas and characters. But a lot of the slam comes from this very personal place and that is highly valued by the audience and the judges.
What did you leave out that you wish you could have included?
So much. We had over 350 hours of footage and the movie is 99 minutes. For the educational DVD we’ve been able to add this really beautiful poem from Nate. And it’s going to air on OWN and they will put out a DVD and we hope there will be extras in that.
Are the slam kids influenced by classic poetry? Do they read it in school?
Oh yeah. Nate’s walls are covered with Bob Dylan and Langston Hughes. They read Gwendolyn Brooks, they read all kinds of stuff. Kevin and the teachers bring all kinds of influences and poetry into the classroom. Nate uses the word villanelle, a reference to a classic formal poetry structure.
Tell me about the teachers who work with these kids.
They are incredible. I think “love” is a word people are uncomfortable with, but it is really what this movie is about, love between the teammates, love from the community, and love between these teachers and their students. The teachers are the heroes of the film, not in a hammering political way but you just see it.
Interview: Sue Bourne of the Irish Dance Competition Documentary ‘Jig’
Posted on June 17, 2011 at 10:14 am
Director Sue Bourne talked to me about her new documentary, “Jig,” the story of the Irish dancing world championships. It is thrilling, touching, and inspiring, with unforgettable characters and stories and dancing that would make Michael Flatley stand up and cheer.
This is your first feature, right?
Yes. I’ve been making films for British television for a long time, won some awards, but this is my first feature and it has been a very interesting journey to go on. Once we heard that 6000 dancers from all around the world were coming to Glasgow for the Irish dancing world championships, I pitched the idea to the BBC. They said, “That sounds interesting,” and I said, “I want to make a feature film,” and they said, “Why?” I said, ” I don’t want to make a film about an Englishman, and Irishman, and a Scotsman going to Glasgow — that’s dull as ditchwater.” If we’re going to make a film that shows the true international scope of Irish dancing then let’s be ambitious about it and raise a big budget and do a big proper feature film. So it began with me being a bit big for my boots and saying, “I want to go around the world! I need a big budget!” and it escalated from there! I could see it would have international appeal and a cinema audience. Very few documentaries have what it takes for a cinematic theatrical release but I knew this was one.
How did you know?
My key thing in the films I make is finding the extraordinary in the apparently ordinary. Everyone’s got a story to tell and I am always keen to show that it’s not about dance; it’s about people and their stories and their lives and what they are passionate about. I just sensed that there would be great stories and great characters, that it would be about much more than Irish dancing. And you throw into that that it’s got great music, great dancing, children — I thought, this could be like “Spellbound,” plus “Mad Hot Ballroom” with a dash of Riverdance thrown in as well.
Those children are amazing, not just in their talent but in their determination and maturity. When the two top competitors hugged each other, it was a stunningly moving and powerful moment.
And they’re just 10! We knew that one of the stories we would have to find was a ten year old coming to the World’s for the first time. We looked for a long time, and many of them were shy. But then I saw Brogan and she was so remarkable. I said, “Who’s that!” I thought, “I’ve got to find out more about that wee girl.” She could talk for Britain and she was a 10 year old with a sense of humor. She’s remarkable. Yes, it’s about dancing, but it’s about much, much more than that.
We live in a world of “do your own thing” and yet this incredibly rigid and formal style of dance that is so particular and unchanging attracts passionate devotion from people around the world.
After two years, I’m none the wiser about that as to why they all love it so much. As one said, “It’s the shoes and the rhythm.” The closest I’ve got is that it casts a spell and you’re hooked. Something inside them connects with the rhythm or the music or the dance.
One of the most fascinating parts of the movie is how many people overlook their own cultural and ethnic traditions to devote themselves to Irish dance. You have a group from Moscow, Americans, and a Dutch kid originally from Sri Lanka.
Only about three of the dancers are Irish! Even little Brogan, her family never did any Irish dancing. And people said, “The film is going to be filled with pushy parents.” On the contrary, we found bemused parents who’ve been dragged into it by children who have been captivated by the dance.
It is as engrossing to watch the parents as the children, though. You have a couple of shots where you can tell everything just from the way they tense their shoulders and life their chins as they watch their children perform.
As with all sport, the teachers and parents live a little vicariously through their children and it is so beautifully manifest in that moment. I had to ask myself as a mother if I would be willing to make some of the sacrifices the parents in this movie make to support their children — to move from California to Birmingham! If you’ve got a tennis or golf prodigy you might movie because they could make millions. But here, if you are the world champion, you get a little bauble. They’re not motivated by celebrity, they’re not motivated by money, they’re not motivated by anything other than the goals they set themselves to be the best.
I love Mark and Lindsay Goffman’s new documentary, “Dumbstruck,” which follows five ventriloquists over the course of a year between the two annual conventions that give them their one chance to be with others who share their passion. It is funny, smart, inspiring, and heartwarming, and I had a lot of fun talking to Mark about how it got made and what he learned.
We set out to look at working ventriloquists in small-town America. That’s where we thought we would find ventriloquism. It harkens back to a simpler time and we liked the smaller venues’ feel. We knew Terry was phenomenally talented from the moment we saw him. We expected to see him in his home city of Corsicana and state fairs and things like that and then he got on “America’s Got Talent” and it just exploded from there.
The other ventriloquists are very happy for him but it also makes them dream bigger for themselves.
It gave a lot of people hope. They’re a really tight-knit community and think of themselves as a family and that was something I really wanted to capture in the film. There are very few ventriloquists in most towns so they feel a bit isolated. They feel like they’re on their own and as you can see in the film their families don’t always support this vocation they have chosen so they have this very strong sense of community. Really, when we stared we thought cruise ships was the pinnacle — that was a great living. Dan Horn was seen as achieving about as much success as you can get with this art form. And Terry comes out of nowhere and explodes onto the screen and it was really quite astonishing.
At our wedding my mother-in-law got up to give a toast. Her lips didn’t move and she held up her hand with a white glove on it like a sock puppet and words started coming out and her hand started delivering a toast. It was incredibly endearing and charming and really funny and certainly unexpected to the 150 guests. It turned out she does ventriloquism primarily in schools — she’s a second grade teacher and she does it in her classroom. But she has learned that she can express herself very differently and it makes her feel a lot more comfortable in front of a crowd. She told us about the ventriloquist conference in Kentucky and Lindsay and I knew that this was a community we wanted to see. We found 500 people with their dummies talking back and forth and really bonding. We fell in love with these five people that we wanted to follow.
Some of the family members you spoke to were embarrassed or even hostile about their relatives’ interest in ventriloquism.
We wanted to know what their lives were like outside of the convention where they feel welcome and very supported. And we found that most of the time their families didn’t understand. We hope that’s something people can relate to, whether it’s any hobby or career path, some people have families that are very supportive and others have to find the courage and determination to pursue their dreams and their loves despite what others around them think.
That’s why they are so happy to be together — they feel understood and accepted.
The people who run the convention say it’s like a family reunion. They keep that kind of atmosphere and it’s a very welcoming environment. You see that when Wilma needs help, the people are there for her.
Is it true that you had to remind the sound guys not to mic the puppets?
It was true of the boom mics — when the dummy starts talking, we had to remind them to keep them over the person, not the puppet.
Have you tried ventriloquism?
I have tried it; it’s incredibly hard. I have enormous respect for anyone who can do it. It’s an instrument. You have eyes, ears, mouth, you have to synch with the voice. That’s one of the reasons we showed Tim Selberg; he is like the Stradavarius of figure-makers; they can cost up to $20,000. These things are finely-tuned instruments. Not only do you have to manipulate this and make it behave like a human being but you have to create a character, a persona. And then, on top of that, you have to come up with a routine that’s essentially a stand-up routine, and that’s a talent in itself. It’s a combination of a lot of different skills. It’s very hard.
Yes, one of the most interesting scenes is where one of your ventriloquists gets some advice from a consultant about how to improve her act because you see how much has to go into it.
She was looking for some guidance and the man who came in and helped her is very well known and respected and he advised her to give her puppet a huge makeover. He was mining the comedy out of who she was and trying to give her puppet a counterpart to play off that. The successful ones create a character who can say the things they wouldn’t normally say or aren’t comfortable saying.
Dylan told us there are very few minorities in his school and he’s a showman and he thought he could get a lot of shock value and mileage out of it. At the same time, he told me on many occasions that Reggie is his best friend and he hopes they are together for the rest of his life. It’s an amazing attachment that they have.
