For the rest of the months, I’ve got four documentaries and a based-on-a-true-story. Go figure.
Gather, 21 August 2020, streamed via the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
- The description from the website: “Gather is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide.”
- I dig foodways a lot, so I bought a ticket to the stream post-haste. One of the subjects frames the topic succinctly--colonial violence has been and continues to be enacted through food and the lack of it. For example, millions of buffalo were slaughtered in order to deprive native inhabitants of a primary source of food, and then the American government provided them with food that guaranteed they wouldn’t be able to thrive. Taking food sovereignty away from indigenous peoples is a tool of control. America sucks, guys.
- Because this is a film from HSDFF, this is of course a GORGEOUS film, with a great mix of interviews and historical documents. It’s lovely to see folks bolstering traditional foods and food practices through teaching and training.
Freedom Writers, 31 August 2020, streamed via Google Play Movies So I’m watching this for one of the classes I teach.
- So this is just Dangerous Minds, right? I’m pretty sure this is just Dangerous Minds. But probably with a disappointing lack of Coolio.
- So Eva, played by April Lee Hernandez, is a third-generation gang member in Long Beach. She’s doing the voiceover for the movie. AND YET Hillary Swank and McDreamy are on the cover of the movie. I get it, but hey y’all, would it kill to have, like, a Latinx instructor working in what Hollywood considers the “inner city.”
- Oh great, “voluntary integration” in the 90s is apparently a bad thing because Imelda Staunton isn’t allowed to be a good rep for educational administration.
- Yeah, this is a “based on a true story” situation, but damn if I’m not tired of the teacher-as-white-saviour narrative.
- So, like, we’re supposed to feel Hillary Swank’s sadness about her sub-optimal classroom surroundings, but I’m just like, uh, that is what every school I ever attended looked like, lady.
- Ah, the young people have no respect and also like to beat the crap out of each other. Sigh.
- Erin’s father got super OK Boomer, and then to prove him wrong, she tries to make herself relevant to the kids by bopping her head to Tupac. Oof.
- Girrrrl, you don’t make students change seats during classtime. You make that seating chart beforehand.
- So, uh, calling the Nazis a “gang” is painfully embarrassing bullshit, and having the students all, like, YEAH about Nazi propaganda...UGH.
- "I’m not just gonna give you my respect because you’re called a teacher.” "White people always wanting their respect like they deserve it for free.”
- I admire Erin’s bright-eyed idealism, and I get her teeth-gritting frustration, but girl did NOT do her research on the neighborhood before she got here, and the intensity of failure there is difficult to grok.
- I’m nitpicking Erin’s passive racism, but all the other teachers are actively racist. Like, not a single one of them says more than two sentences before I start shouting, WELL FUUUUUUCK YOU.
- The journals--having students write about whatever they want and promising she’s the only one that’ll read them--is a good way to get the students involved, and having the voiceovers often accompanied by flashbacks is a nice touch.
- Erin getting a second job at a department store in order to buy supplies and texts for her students because the school won’t provide them is TOO REAL. But also, girl, do you not know how to order books in bulk from the publisher? What the hell kind of teachers’ college did you attend?
- WHY IS HER FATHER SO INVOLVED IN HER JOB
- WTH, how did Erin manage to sponsor dinner with multiple Holocaust survivors to meet with her students? Like, that’s cool, but WTH.
- The combination of validating students’ experiences (having them write their own diaries), then connecting to educational content (The Diary of Anne Frank, and first-person historical accounts), leads to some genuine sharing. A large part of it, of course, is that the students can see how much she’s trying to understand and invest in them. That is, even if she’s doing it pretty poorly, it’s super clear how much she cares.
- Oh, MAN, McDreamy decided to leave Erin because she isn’t living that bougie lifestyle? What a dickwad.
- So I get that the other teachers are awful human beings, but there is a point in the idea that students should be taught by more than one instructor over time.
Teach Us All, 01 September 2020, streamed via Netflix
This is another movie I’m watching for a class--a documentary on school segregation, particularly in regards to the Little Rock Nine at Central High. (Interestingly enough, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard at least one of the Little Rock Nine speak, but that was almost a couple of decades ago when I was an undergrad. I haven’t gone to actually visit the site yet, but I went to a talk and art exhibition at the LR art museum.)
What’s particularly interesting about this is how it moves from the Little Rock Nine to school integration in general, and then to de facto segregation as it stands currently. It focuses particularly on segregation in New York and Los Angeles (which isn’t surprising), but it also includes current students, parents, and teachers talking about what’s needed in order to make things better--a nice hopeful note in a pretty disheartening overall narrative. (The kids talking about how they feel like nobody believes in them is ROUGH, so that last segment is particularly helpful.)
Softie, 18 September 2020, streamed via Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
The film starts off with a bunch of dudes in Kenya bottling a thousand litres of pig blood , then painting words on some feral pigs. Weird, but it leads us into a political protest against corrupt members of parliament. Government forces do not respond positively. One of the protesters, Boniface “Softie” Mwangi, is the subject of the film as he runs for office in (voiceover tells us) one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Along with balancing the political and national unrest, the film zooms in on how Mwangi’s family participates and is impacted by the work he endeavors to do. “The revolution comes first,” Mwangi tells his wife at one point, “then love follows.”
Also, in a way that matters, but differently, the credits for this documentary are the classiest thing I’ve seen. In about ten minutes, between that surreal opening, the credits, and the scene-setting of Mwangi’s activist work on post-election violence in the aughts (which ended with Kenyan officials being charged with crimes against humanity), it’s clear to see why this film won honor at Sundance. After the film screening, HSDFF had a Q&A with the director, Sam Soko, and a producer, Toni Kamau.
All In: The Fight for Democracy, 21 September 2020, streamed via The Atlantic Festival
The film is first framed through Stacey Abrams and her campaign for governor, but it’s about voter suppression and it is SO STRESSFUL, friends. (Also: Every time I hear
In other news, I am starting to have a LOT of mixed feelings about how much documentaries rely on people being able to read chunks of text in a short time.
October is the Hot Springs Documentary Festival, y’all. I will inundate you with KNOWLEDGE in a month.
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