ADVENTURES IN FILMMAKING
Hello blog readers. I’m Rebecca Richman Cohen, a relapsed documentary filmmaker. I say relapsed because I tried to quit this industry once already to no avail. After swearing off assistant editing, I went to law school and became passionate about indigent criminal defense. But alas, I wound up filmmaking again.
I’m a doc addict. So it goes.
I’m representing two films in Independent Film Week. Both are directly criminal justice related, though perhaps not sufficiently so to justify three years of law school. The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest (directed by Gabriel London, produced by me) deals with a mentally ill prison escape artist in North Florida. And War Don Don (directed by me, produced by Francisco Bello) profiles a controversial international war crimes trial in Sierra Leone. Both films are stories about complicated human beings caught in complicated institutions. Sometimes I conflate the two protagonists, but I’ve come to realize it’s not helpful. So I’ve been practicing the pitches in my mind to make sure that I don’t confuse a convicted West African war criminal with a largely non-violent Floridian escape artist. Though I’m setting myself up for a good punch line here about how to secure finishing funds…
Preparing for Independent Film Week has been a grounding moment. After years working on both these films, years spent between quiet contemplation in edit rooms and raucous high-pressure team-building shoots in prisons, parole hearings, courtrooms, and massacre sites – we’ve arrived at a moment where we’re required to take these deeply personal, sometimes emotionally overwhelming experiences and present them to strangers. Of course this is the purpose of documentary storytelling – to bring these stories to larger audiences, to inspire thoughtful public debate – but still it feels strange. War Don Don is at a rough cut stage – and the DeFriest film is not quite there yet. How will industry folks look at these works-in-progress? Will we communicate the importance of the issues, the charisma of the protagonists, the poignancy of the stories? It’s in our hands to craft our films so that they make sense. And for anyone who has ever pitched a rough cut, this can be really daunting.
So with my anxieties on the table, I’d like to give a shout out to some doc filmmakers who have helped soothe my nerves over the last few months. Last April I participated in the IFP Doc Lab with a number of other Brooklyn-based filmmakers – and I’ve stayed in touch with a bunch of them. We’ve shared story consultants, fundraising strategies, and IFW fashion tips – in short, we’ve forged a community. So dear reader, if you’ve read this far and you’re looking for some good films to follow this week – check out Marie-Helene Carleton & Micah Garen’s The Road to Nasiriyah, Miao Wang’s Beijing Taxi, and Julia Haslett’s An Interview with Simone Weil. They’re inspiring films for all different reasons, and perhaps equally importantly, they’re made by inspired filmmakers.
Cosmic wishes that we’re all triumphant, whatever the measure of success, at the end of the week.
PHOTO: A thoughtful Francisco Bello expertly editing War Don Don as I write this blog post.
