Action star Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Avengers) delves into the shadowy world of investigative journalism as Gary Webb, the real-life journalist who remains one of the most controversial of our times. In the vein of “All the President’s Men,” this thriller follows Webb’s allegations that the CIA supported Nicaraguan contra efforts through the importation of crack cocaine into American cities. Threatened against releasing his evidence, in 1996 Webb nevertheless wrote a three-part series in the San Jose Mercury News — paying for it with his reputation and ultimately his life.
Archives for August 2015
Free Community Screening: September 18, “Gideon’s Army” at Georgetown University
September 18: “Gideon’s Army” at Georgetown University
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to have the assistance of counsel for his defense” — Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. But with 15,000 public defenders for 12 million arrests per year, this unalienable right becomes a civil rights battle for those unable to afford a lawyer. “Gideon’s Army” follows three of its soldiers as they navigate the emotional and personal strain of handling hundreds of cases at once, simultaneously introducing viewers to defendants and their struggle — frightening, heartbreaking, and inspiring — for equality in the courtroom.
Free Community Screening: September 16, “Merchants of Doubt” at Martin Luther King Jr. Library
September 16: “Merchants of Doubt” 6:30pm at MLK Library.
Adversaries for hire. Robert Kenner’s 2014 documentary enters the world of scientific gunslingers, experts paid by corporations to publicly contest research findings that may hurt their bottom line. This world, Merchants of Doubt posits, is one in which global warming, DDT, acid rain, tobacco, ozone, and asbestos remain controversial at the benefit of big business and the mouthpieces they hire — and the expense of scientific communities overwhelmingly adamant about the need for regulatory action.
Free Community Screening: September 13, “Poverty, Inc.” at Busboys and Poets (14th &V)
The Investigative Film Festival is proud to present a free community screening of “Poverty, Inc.” on September 13 at 6:30 p.m. at Busboys and Poets. The 2014 documentary questions the system of entrenched humanitarian aid in developing countries — what impact do free goods have on local economies? Why is NGO presence perpetual? Is altruism profitable? Director Michael Matheson Miller interviews 200 community leaders from 20 nations in a quest to find out.
The first Investigative Film Festival in the United States aims to facilitate discourse about the marriage of media and journalism and its impact on the issues of today. Free community screenings will be provided throughout September and the Festival will take place September 30-October 2 at the National Portrait Gallery.
Now/Then: Connecting today’s headlines with yesterday’s documentaries
By Lewam Dejen
Angola, USA
A few weeks ago, President Obama pardoned 46 low-level drug offenders. The next day, he visited the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s annual conference in Philadelphia to proclaim his commitment to prison reform in the last stretch of his presidency. Although this issue may feel recent to many Americans, it has afflicted our country for decades. Seventeen years ago, the documentary film The Farm: Angola, USA brought unprecedented insight into mass incarceration and its disproportionate effects on black Americans.
“I’ve been raised here,” Eugene Tannehill Jr. says matter-of-factly. By “here,” he’s referring to the former plantation he lives on, where his food is monitored, hard labor profited from, life threatened frequently, and individuality stripped. This place, which he is forced to call home, is the largest prison in the United States, known colloquially as “Angola.” (Its informal name derives from the Angolan slaves that previously worked the land.)
“It was October 4th, 1959… I must have been 24 years old then,” Mr. Tannehill says of the day of his sentencing. At the time of this interview, he had lived in Angola for 38 years. Tannehill is a black man– one of many, as Angola had a 77% black demographic (at the time of this film’s release). The prison also has an 80% death rate within the prison. Few who enter leave alive.
In a chilling scene, the film introduces Vincent Allen Simmons, who is African-American. Simmons brings his case to the parole board for appeal–his first hearing in 20 years at Angola. He was charged with the rape of two white girls and sentenced to 100 years. Simmons sits tall and broad-chested on one side of the table as he supplies the three-man board with evidence challenging his guilty verdict (evidence for which he petitioned several U.S. courts a dozen times, after which they finally provided documents allegedly “lost” previously). Simmons provides the board medical evidence that suggests both sexual assaults never occurred (made stronger by the complete lack of physical evidence that sentenced him), testimonies from the two women who said they could not identify the rapist because “all blacks look alike”, and a photograph of Simmons as the only man in the lineup with handcuffs on. This discussion of unfair sentencing did not take into account the prevailing anti-black racism in 1970’s Louisiana.
After Mr. Simmons steps out of the room and the door shuts, the camera pans to the three men and within seconds, all three board members claim defiantly that Simmons is guilty–with nearly zero explanation or discussion of the presented evidence. “He did it… Let’s get this thing over with” one says, rushing to have the other two sign the decision of dismissal.
The Farm opened viewers eyes to the U.S.’s vastly flawed criminal justice system in 1998, as did several other documentary films, news specials, and books written nearly a generation ago. Why has it taken until now for a U.S. President and Congressional body to address the issue? Why is it that President Obama is the very first to visit a federal prison, although mass incarceration began plaguing our country in the 1980’s?
Towards the beginning of the film, singing inmates fill viewers’ ears with a hymn as they bury a fellow inmate:
…Praise the Lord, I’m free. No longer bound, no more chains all in me. Soul is resting, and it’s just another blessing. Praise the Lord, hallelujah I’m free…
Lewam Dejen
100Reporters intern and Stanford University student