Filmmakers Steer Clear of Big Easy Clichés

Five years ago, the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States struck southern Louisiana, forever altering the face of America’s most unique and freewheeling city, New Orleans. While the news media revisits the Crescent City to find out what has changed and what hasn’t, a team of filmmakers working with ITVS is documenting the real story of the resurrection of a metropolis with a long history of coming back from the dead with inimitable style.

Their documentary-in-progress Getting Back to Abnormal by former New Orleans residents, Louis Alvarez, Andrew Kolker, Peter Odabashian, and Paul Stekler, explores the state of New Orleans politics and culture five years after Hurricane Katrina.

Set against the backdrop of the 2009-2010 local political season, the election of the first white mayor in a generation, and the triumph of the city’s erstwhile worst NFL team, the Saints, Getting Back to Abnormal will frame its story via the city’s complicated and ever-present issues of race.

The film was one of several to receive Open Call funding from ITVS in the most recent round. At the producers’ orientation last month, filmmakers Andrew Kolker and Paul Stekler spoke about what New Orleans means to them and why it was important to get the story right.

Tags: hurricane, ITVS, Katrina, New Orleans, nola, PBS, public television

Ngôi Làng Mang Tên Versailles – (A Village Called Versailles)

Panelist Uyen Le is interviewed for Saigon TV KJLA

Community Cinema’s National Coordinator Desiree Gutierrez reflects on a screening of A Village Called Versailles held earlier this month before an entirely Vietnamese audience in Southern California.

As one of the National Community Cinema Coordinators, I am use to hosting screenings with diverse crowds, but Sunday night I had the chance to be the outsider at a screening of A Village Called Versailles hosted by Nguoi Viet Daily News in Orange County’s Little Saigon.

The newspaper was the first Vietnamese publication outside of Vietnam and has a rich history. As it was told to me, the newspaper originated out of a series of letters that traveled back and forth between Vietnam and the U.S. as people tried to track down their family members and friends after the war.

Tiffany Le a reporter at Nguoi Viet reached out to me last month wanting to learn more about hosting a screening of A Village Called Versailles. She knew the residents of her community would want to see the film, but as she pointed out, they would not drive to LA or West Hollywood to attend one of our already scheduled events. We made arrangements to host the film at the newspapers auditorium in the heart of Little Saigon.

The newspaper had given us tremendous media coverage. We had a feature with images run a few days before the screening, and an interview with the filmmaker run the day of the event, not to mention a half page ad in the World Cup edition of the paper. Needless to say, the Vietnamese community knew we were having an event and they turned out. Nearly 200 people and four media crews filled the auditorium, and as I had been warned, I the only “Westerner” in the room.

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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, oil spill, Vietnamese

Youth Activists Step Up in New Orleans

Part of the miraculous story of the neighborhood called Versailles in New Orleans rising from the floodwaters to rebuild itself and sustain its citizens after Hurricane Katrina was the unprecedented leadership role that the younger generation took.

Traditionally, the Vietnamese culture in both Vietnam and in this community’s adopted home in New Orleans reserved moral, ethical, and political leadership to the older generations. In the wake of Katrina, and now in the midst of a cataclysmic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the younger generation is proving to be an indispensible link between the English-speaking establishment and the older generations of Vietnamese immigrants who, because of a language and cultural divide, cannot effectively speak for themselves.

In this web-exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, watch how the youth in Versailles stepped into a void and organized their community to rebuild its demolished infrastructure, and then fight off a cynical political ploy to locate a toxic waste dump next to their neighborhood:

Watch A Village Called Versailles tonight on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

Tags: Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, oil spill, Vietnamese, youth

New Orleans Vietnamese Take Another Blow

The scale of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is nearly impossible to comprehend. Because the spill is an ongoing catastrophe, the scope of the devastation to local communities cannot even begin to be tabulated.

A third to half of the commercial fishers in the spill area are Vietnamese. Again, the Vietnamese community in New Orleans is taking a huge proportion of the impact this disaster.

While British Petroleum has pledged to compensate fishers who are losing their livelihoods because of the spill, the choices they offer aren’t very appetizing: fishers may file a claim for up to $5,000 for losses related to the spill, or sign up for training to do oil clean-up work. In each case, they sign waivers agreeing to never hold the company liable for future losses or injury. The problem is, all of the paperwork — and all of the training — is in English, and most of the fishers cannot read or speak English, let alone understand legal fine print. BP has not provided any Vietnamese-speaking claims personnel to connect with this demographic.

Father Vien Nguyen, who rallied his community against a toxic landfill in the months after Katrina, is fighting back against BP’s seemingly cavalier approach to this devastated local economy and the Vietnamese people who keep it alive.

Watch A Village Called Versailles featuring Father Vien’s battle against the landfill in 2005, on Independent Lens Tuesday, May 25th on PBS (Check local listings).

And watch Father Vien’s update on what’s happening in Versailles since the oil disaster began:

Tags: bp, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, oil spill, Vietnamese

Father Vien — New Orleans’ Community Champion

Father Vien Nguyen, a Catholic priest and progressive social activist in the Vietnamese community of New Orleans recently received the Community Champion Award from the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO). Father Vien is prominently featured in the Independent Lens documentary A Village Called Versailles, airing next Tuesday, May 25th on PBS (check local listings). AAPCHO Membership Relations Associate Grace-Sonia Melanio gives us a recap of the awards ceremony.

Father Vien Nguyen accepting the AAPCHO Community Champion Award

In February, the organization I work for, the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), at their fundraising awards gala, showed excerpts from A Village Called Versailles, and presented Father Vien Nguyen with AAPCHO’s Community Champion Award.

For those of you who are not already familiar with AAPCHO’s work, AAPCHO is a national organization representing community health centers dedicated to promoting advocacy, collaboration, and leadership that advances the health status of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders. So when my organization began having conversations about honoring a community champion, we wanted to recognize Father Vien’s work towards re-establishing primary health care services in New Orleans East post-Katrina. As chronicled in A Village Called Versailles, Father Vien’s leadership helped galvanize Vietnamese Americans in Louisiana to rebuild their region, and fight a toxic landfill that threatened the well-being and health of their community.

When ITVS learned that AAPCHO planned to honor Father Vien, they graciously loaned us a copy of the film to show at our awards ceremony. While Father Vien’s accomplishments were read by our emcee, film and television actress Tamlyn Tomita, the audience was visibly moved, as footage from the documentary was simultaneously projected on two large screens. The film punctuated the remarkable battle Father Vien and the Vietnamese American community of Versailles had fought and won to reclaim and protect their home.

Watch the trailer for A Village Called Versailes >>

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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, oil spill, Vietnamese

Seattle’s Vietnamese Community Rallies Around A Village Called Versailles

Community Cinema recently hosted a screening of the Independent Lens film A Village Called Versailles in Seattle. The film follows a Vietnamese American community on the edge of New Orleans that fought the opening of a toxic government-imposed landfill near their homes. Find out what happened at the screening from National Community Cinema Coordinator Patrick Baroch, who organized the event.

Panelists (l. to r.) Nanette Fok, Thao Nguyen, Trang Tu, and Trong Pham

Despite another unusually gorgeous sunny day in Seattle, we had 130 people attend our recent free Community Cinema Seattle premiere event for A Village Called Versailles. Eight people showed up just for the panel discussion. The audience loved the film finding it humorous, touching, and inspiring. There were big reactions to the story and the people in the film. The audience laughed, gasped, and were silently moved by the inspirational residents of East New Orleans’ Versailles.

We were lucky to have Trang Tu on our panel. Trang, an urban planner, is featured in the film. She spoke eloquently about Versailles and then about plans for development in Seattle and how the community can support or protest the new development in Little Saigon. Trang was integral in the development of the master plan for the rebuilding of Versailles.

Repeating that message was Thao T. Nguyen of the Vietnamese Friendship Association and Neighborhood House. Thao is a young board member who gave the audience some great tips for local activism and community support.

Our moderator, Nanette Fok, is a local activist and community organizer who drew fascinating opinions and stories from our panel. She asked how the lessons learned in A Village Called Versailles could be applied to Seattle. The audience decided that the film was an excellent catalyst topics like disaster preparedness on the community/neighborhood level.

Also on the panel was Trong Pham, President of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, who spoke about the robust Vietnamese business community in Seattle. He and the Chamber sponsored a Vietnamese feast in the lobby after the event. At least 50-60 people stayed after the panel discussion and mingled and networked in the lobby.

-Patrick Baroch, National Community Cinema Coordinator

A Village Called Versailles airs Tuesday, May 25 at 10:00 on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

Tags: environmental, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, oil spill, Vietnamese

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans rebroadcasting on PBS

Two years before The Wire’s David Simon launched his new HBO series called Tremé, New Orleans producers Dawn Logsdon and Lolis Eric Elie (now a writer for the series) produced the ITVS funded film Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. The moving and eye-opening documentary covers centuries of arguably the oldest and most fascinating African American neighborhood in the United States. In the film, newspaper columnist Lolis Eric Elie guides us through the historic community that gave birth to jazz and the civil rights movement in the South. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor co-habitated, collaborated, and clashed to create much of what defines New Orleans culture up to the present day. Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans goes behind the Hollywood version of Tremé revealing the real inhabitants of this fascinating neighborhood. Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is rebroadcasting on PBS in limited markets across the country (check local listings) and is available for purchase through www.tremedoc.com.  See why the New Orleans Times Picayune calls it “required viewing for anyone prepping for the upcoming HBO drama… Essential history and pleasure.”

Tags: David Simon, HBO, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, The Wire, Treme

In the News: The Latest on ITVS Programs

“Few outside the industry realize the key role Canada, and particularly its biggest film festivals, play in getting some of these award-winning films off the ground. Case in point: WALTZ WITH BASHIR, the front-runner to take home the award for best foreign-language picture on Sunday night.”
Read full review >>

“New Orleans has problems for sure, but Fabourg Tremé reminds us that not only is it our obligation as a nation to restore it, but that parts of its history could be a model for a brighter future for the city—and for the rest of us.”
Read full review >>

Tony Cox of News & Notes talks with resident and journalist Lolis Eric Elie about FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans.
Listen online >>

“FAUBOURG TREMÉ: Bravo. A masterwork! Fabulous story, delightful interviews, captivating footage.”
Read full review >>

“FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans draws a poignant portrait of what may be the oldest black neighborhood in America … New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Lolis Eric Elie gently guides viewers through the neighborhood’s glorious past and inglorious suffering after Katrina, illuminating customs that distinguish New Orleans from every city on earth.”
Read more >>

“The roots of separation seemed to run as deep as the massive oaks that line the parade route. And while [THE ORDER OF MYTHS] illustrates the potential for change, it is obvious from its beginning to the dramatic, intriguingly open ending that change will be a long time coming.”
Read full review >>

Tags: Mardi Gras, New Orleans, NPR

Filmmakers Delve Into History of Faubourg Tremé

Filmmaker Dawn Logsdon

Producer Lucie Faulkor, writer Lolis Eric Elie, director Dawn Logsdon and cinematographer Bobby Shepard, filming after Hurricane Katrina.

Nestled at the edge of New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter, Faubourg Tremé is one of America’s oldest African American neighborhoods. This once vibrant neighborhood was the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement in the South and the home of jazz. Shot largely before Hurricane Katrina, FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans pays tribute to what African American communities have contributed––even under the most hostile of conditions. Throughout the month of February, it will air on PBS (check local listings).

Filmmaker Dawn Logsdon recently sat down to discuss the film and why she approached ITVS for funding. Read the Q&A below:

What inspired you to make a film about Faubourg Tremé?
It’s an amazing place with an amazing history that almost no one knew––even in New Orleans. I had a personal connection to the area because my father was a local historian who had dedicated his life to uncovering this forgotten history and used to drag me along as a kid to talk with the old people in French and translate old tombs. My co-director/writer Lolis Eric Elie had a more recent personal connection in that he’d moved to the neighborhood a few years before and was renovating an old house there. I think we picked the Tremé neighborhood because in many ways it epitomized the best and the worst of New Orleans for us. On the one hand, for centuries, it’s been a wellspring of incredible multiracial creativity and cultural exchange. On the other hand, that same history is littered with tragic failures and brutal oppression and the contemporary neighborhood was reeling from the effects of that history.

What were some of the challenges of making this film?
1. What I wanted to capture were the many ways past and present come together. That’s incredibly hard to do for an entire neighborhood because it meant bringing together over 200 years of very complex history, complex themes and an array of historical and contemporary characters. We struggled with how to do that for a long time and finally in the summer of 2005 we had a cut we were pretty happy with. Then the levees broke and flooded 80% of our city, including my own neighborhood and parts of Faubourg Tremé. That year was definitely our low point. We had to relocate, rebuild our own lives, and at the same time re-conceive an already complicated film to include a one more huge, unanticipated storyline. 2. Fundraising- especially before Katrina when most major funders would tell us “ it wasn’t a national story.” 3. Feeding a vegetarian cameraman in the middle of a disaster zone.

How did your background shape the making of this film?
I’m white and Lolis is black. As children of the 60’s, we belong to the first “desegregation generation” in the South. Both of us grew up in families that were very active in the Civil Rights movement and the movement permeated our childhoods. I was sent to an almost all black elementary school and Lolis and his sister were the first black children to attend a fancy all-white private school. Lucie Faulknor, our co-producer, was a recent transplant to New Orleans from San Francisco and brought her newcomer’s eyes to the story. So of course our backgrounds influenced what we thought was important about Faubourg Tremé. In my memory of the last several years, we were almost always in agreement about the Civil Rights focus of the film and instead we argued constantly about the way to tell that story. I’m more drawn to characters and human emotion. Lolis is more drawn to facts, especially facts told as succiently as possible by experts. I don’t know if that’s the difference between my training as a filmmaker and his as a print journalist or just some fundamental difference in the way we interpret the world. I do know that Lucie was frequently the mediator and also the one who continually pointed out things that we as New Orleanians took for granted but that a national audience wasn’t going to understand. The result of all those arguments I think is a strong film that blends all of our outlooks and created a lifelong bond among us.

Why did you work with ITVS to fund your film? How did you first hear about us?
I had edited several ITVS funded films including the WEATHER UNDERGROUND and HOPE ALONG THE WIND: The Life of Harry Hay, so I already knew about ITVS and more specifically about the LINCS initiative. LINCs seemed like a perfect fit for us because it pairs projects with a regional focus with local PBS stations. We ended up with two partner stations––first, WYES in New Orleans, and then after Hurricane Katrina, LPB in Baton Rouge came to our rescue.

Check out a preview of the film below:

FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
Airing this month on PBS (check local listings)

Tags: African American, New Orleans, online video, PBS

Funding Discussion and Community Cinema in New Orleans

Erica Deiparine-Sugars, director of programming/LINCS program manager; Lolis Eric Elie, co-director/writer of FAUBORG TREMÉ; Kelly Whalen, co-director of TULIA, TEXAS; and Rebecca Snedeker, producer/director of BY INVITATION ONLY

A crowd gathered earlier this week at the Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center in New Orleans, LA, to hear about funding opportunities and other information about ITVS from Erica Deiparine-Sugars, director of programming/LINCS program manager.

Erica discussed the scope of ITVS’s work and advised the filmmakers to apply multiple times, if necessary, and to follow instructions explicitly. She also provided an overview of two ITVS funding opportunities–Open Call and LINCS––as well as the type of outreach and support ITVS provides to its funded filmmakers.

The event included a discussion with three filmmakers who received ITVS funds, which included Lolis Eric Elie, FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans; Rebecca Snedeker, BY INVITATION ONLY; and Kelly Whalen, TULIA, TEXAS. Each filmmaker spoke about why they went the ITVS route. Rebecca noted that the one downside––copious paperwork––ended up being a great advantage because it forced her to continue refining her film’s message. Each filmmaker also discussed the nature of public television and why it seemed like the best choice for their film.

Following the discussion, people gathered to watch the Community Cinema screening of TULIA, TEXAS and participate in a discussion with Kelly Whalen, the film’s director, Brian Denzer, New Orleans Citizen Crime Watch, and Jerald L. White of Charitable Film Network. Kelly talked about access and how Tulia citizens welcomed her crew in a way they might not have welcomed the mainstream media. The conversation moved to police accountability in New Orleans, where certain neighborhoods are disparaged and considered off-limits because of drugs and violence.

A debate arose about how citizens can best serve a crime-heavy neighborhood, including the one where the Community Cinema screening was held. Does publicizing a neighborhood’s high crime rate hurt its efforts to improve? Brian suggested that money spent on the war on drugs in certain neighborhoods could be instead funneled into social programs to fight the problem at the source.

What do you think? Continue the conversation and post a comment below.

Tags: film resources, filmmakers, New Orleans