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homeless

Princess of the Row – Love on Skid Row

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In Van Maximillian Carlson’s Princess of the Row, the model of familial loves is boiled down to a teenage girl and the love she has for her father. That may not seem a very difficult concept, but the father in this instance is problematic.

Alicia (Tayler Buck) has been bouncing around the foster care system. Not because she hasn’t been placed in good homes, but because she constantly runs away to join her father Bo (Edi Gathegi) who lives on L.A.’s skid row. Alicia loves her father unconditionally. But to the rest of the world Bo (actually Sgt. Beauregard Willis) is the kind of person we avoid at all costs. While the homeless in films are often shown as noble, unlucky, or kindly, Bo is threatening and even a bit disgusting. He suffered traumatic brain injury in Iraq and also suffers from severe PTSD. He mutters to himself, stares off into the distance, and suddenly erupts into violence. But for Alicia, he is the only family she knows.

When Alicia is with her father, she has to assume the parental role, making sure he is safe and has food. There are brief moments when he recognizes her and says something loving to her. She tells him, “I love it when you come back to me”, but those times are fleeting. Alicia, who wants to become a writer, has written a story about a unicorn that expresses something of her feelings for her father. That metaphor is really about her own dream, a dream that may be as unlikely as a real unicorn.

When Alicia tries to get help for Bo at the VA, the foster care people try to separate them. They go on the run. The one person they find willing to help, ends up being a child trafficker. In time, Alicia will need to find a way to live her own life without being tied to her father.

The film has won a number of festival prizes, both for the film itself and for the actors. It is an interesting coincidence that the film is coming out on Thanksgiving weekend in the midst of a pandemic in which we are being asked to forego family gatherings. This is a film that can remind us that the bond of family is something that is precious, but also may require letting go of each other for life to grow into maturity.

Princess of the Row is available at select theaters and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

Disco’d – Meet Your Neighbors

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In 2016 the homeless population of Los Angeles grew to 58,000 people. Disco’d is Matthew Siretta’s look at a handful of those people. Siretta gives us a very personal look at some of those who live in homeless encampments. The title comes from a slang term that means confused, disconcert, or discombobulate. An early scene has one of the homeless men speaking of those who come to take your stuff and cause confusion.

The film focuses on the day to day life of these men and women. Their concerns are survival and keeping their possessions. The possessions are a key issue because it is nearly time for the monthly sweep by the city sanitation department, when they’ll have to take what they can with them while the rest is picked up by trash trucks. Some are planning ahead in getting things ready to move, others will have to scramble when the day comes.

This is not the human interest stories from newspapers of those who find themselves homeless because of some misfortune. These are long-term homeless people, most of whom are heroin addicts. A part of their day to day that we see involves getting high. We also get no backstory on these people; we just know them as they are now.

This film is not about the causes, the diversity, or possible solutions to the homelessness crisis that L.A. (and many other cities) are experiencing. It is about these people. They are not romanticized. They are not especially attractive or easy to identify with. It is even difficult to have a full share of compassion for them.

Although there are times when we do get some connection with them. For example, when one of the women in the film is given $100 by someone, as she goes to splurge at the 99 Cent Store, she spends some of that on a small plastic Christmas tree for her tent. That faint desire for celebration in the midst of so much gloom reminds us of the humanity of these people.

Not being able to make connections with the subjects of the film makes this a difficult film to watch. But that could well be by design. These are not the sympathetic homeless people of the human interest newspaper stories. We may question if they are worthy of our attention. These are the people we intentionally look away from. We see the tents on the sidewalks and opt to take a different route. But the film closes with a title card of a quote from Mayor Eric Garcetti that reminds us: “These men, these women, these children are our neighbors.” It reminds us that Jesus defined “neighbor” with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. That parable says that all of God’s children are worthy of help. Even those we want to avoid.

Photos courtesy of SMMS, LLC

Building The Florida Project: 1on1 with Sean Baker

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Directed by Sean Baker, The Florida Project tells the story of 6-year-old Moonie (Brooklynn Prince) and her relationship with her young and impoverished mother Halley (Bria Vinaite). However, pulling back the camera, the film also shines a light on the lives of the ‘hidden homeless’ outside Orlando, Florida. Having no permanent address and residing in local motels, these homeless individuals and families struggle to survive from week to week. Because the issue is rarely spoken of in the public eye, Baker says that he was completely unaware of this problem.

“My co-screenwriter, Chris Bergoch, brought this issue to my attention [and] He knows what I’m looking for,” he recalls. “This is our third time collaborating together on a screenplay…  I had no idea about the issue of the hidden homeless. I hadn’t even heard that term before and he was showing me articles about how there were families living with children living in budget motels right outside the parks in the tourist capital of the world, Orlando, Florida. We started doing more research and realized it was a national problem:  Boston, San Bernadino, Boston, etc. These are basically families who are technically homeless because they can’t secure permanent housing… They’re literally one step away from being on the streets so I wanted to explore that in the area that Chris showed me, in Kissimmee in Orlando, because of that very sad juxtaposition of homeless children living outside the place that we associate most with children.  The happiest place on Earth.” 

“In that way, [we hope that] the audience will pick up on the fact that, if this could happen right here, it could happen anywhere.”

Having spent a great deal of time with the families that live in these Florida hotels, Baker feels strongly that many of them have been driven into these situations as a direct result of the financial crisis of nearly a decade ago.

“There’s a plethora of reasons why they’ve fallen into the situation that they’re in,” he argues. “Someone asked me who the villain is in the film. I think they were baiting me to point at the corporations or the new administration. But I was like, you know, there are two villains:  the recession of ‘08 followed by the housing crisis that continued right after it. It had an effect that continues to this day. The way that it affected families, individuals, local businesses, local governments and even corporations. People are still living in these situations so it’s something that I felt was an important enough issue that had not really had a light shined on it and this was my way of doing that.”

While hardly new to the independent film industry, Baker is perhaps best known for his previous directorial effort, Tangerine.  In fact, he acknowledges that it was the breakout success of Tangerine that helped pave the way for The Florida Project to become a reality.

“This actually came before Tangerine,” he says. “We’d been trying to get money to make this for a while, close to six years perhaps.  We were looking for money at the time Beasts of the Southern Wild came out so we thought it might be a little too close which might have been why it was so difficult to get funding.  And then, I made Tangerine and that opened doors for us.”

Though some might be frustrated by these delays, Baker believes that they actually benefitted Project by allowing all the proper elements to fall into place.

According to Baker, “Some people talk about serendipity or ‘things that are supposed to happen’ but, if we made this film six years ago when we initially wanted to, Brooklyn [Prince] was only 1 years old. Things happen for a reason and so I’m really happy it took this long. Over the years that we were thinking about it, I think my vision became stronger with it.”

Despite their vast differences, Baker also recognizes a relationship between both Tangerine and The Florida Project through their use of style and theme.

“Without having made Tangerine first, it would be a very different movie because of that style we used [in Tangerine] where we went with comedy first and foremost to deliver the message, that dictated the way we made this film,” he reflects. “I think we’re telling a universal story in a community that not many people know about or have been underrepresented in film and television. I think that might be the common thing and [of course], the stylistic approach is where the commonality is.”

Through his use of humour within the film, Baker manages to bring a sense of light to an otherwise dark situation. By focusing the narrative through Moonie’s eyes, he allows the characters in the film to reclaim a form of innocence that seems infectious.

“It is very bleak, especially for an adult in full consciousness,” he notes. “That’s one of the many reasons that we decided to focus on children because children are children, no matter where they are or what sort of situation they’re in.  There’s still trying.  There’s still that sense of wonderment.  They use their imagination to make the best of the situation they’re in and that’s what we were trying to show.  Even though this girl lived right outside of these parks and the Magic Kingdom and these amusement rides, they were inaccessible to her yet she was able to turn every day into that.  She was able to turn the parking lot into an nice little amusement park or visiting the cow pasture in the back of the motel was her way of going to the safari.”

Ultimately, however, Baker believes that Moonie’s relationship with her mother, Halley remains the foundation of hope for her in the midst of these painful situations.

“There was a way that this little girl was always able to make the best of things and it was with the help of her mother. Her mother, who comes across as… rough, aggressive, but there is a real love—a maternal love—but she is doing what she can do to always keep her child’s spirits up and make the most of it. Always keeping a smile on her daughter’s face and that’s what I saw on the faces of many of the residents there and I wanted to capture.”

As for the actual residents in these Florida motels, Baker feels that genuine hope exists. With an overwhelming response of support from businesses and local administration, he has noticed a difference in these communities in recent years.

“As far as hope in more realistic terms, all I can say is this:  I do see a change,” he states. “I do see agencies in the area, non-profits, philanthropists, the local government all working together to try to eradicate homelessness in that area.  Even Disney itself has contributed.  In one of the largest charitable contributions by the private sector to eradicated homelessness ever, they gave half a million dollars to the towards the Homeless Impact Fund in Central Florida. So, everyone is trying and that I see as hope.”

The Florida Project is in select theatres now.

4.02 Working on THE FLORIDA PROJECT

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This week, Steve welcomes back ScreenFish’rs Shelley McVea and Darrel Manson to talk about THE FLORIDA PROJECT. Directed by Sean Baker, THE FLORIDA PROJECT follows the stories of the hidden homeless in Kissimmee, FL and focuses on the relationship between Halley (Bria Viniate) and her young daughter, Moonie (Brooklynn Prince). Struggling to live week to week, Halley and Moonie live at The Magic Castle motel, managed with care by Bobby (Willem Dafoe). In the film, PROJECT asks what it means to ‘find your kingdom’ but does it have an answer? And is there a difference between ‘justice’ and ‘charity’? All this and more this week on ScreenFish.

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

4.02 The Florida Project

Thanks Shelley and Darrel for coming on the show!

Kiki – Community for the Marginalized

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“When someone steps on to the ballroom floor, they’re not just competing in categories. They’re telling a story. Someone who walks says, ‘I am beautiful. This is who I am. I’m lovely no matter what you say, what you think. I’m beautiful.’”

The LGBT community is far more diverse than we may usually think. One subculture within that broader community is voguing, which combines expressive dance, elaborate costumes, and a ton of attitude. In New York City, young LGBT people of color may take part in the Kiki scene. This has been chronicled by Sara Jordenö in her Spirit Award nominated (for “Truer than Fiction”) documentary Kiki.

For those unfamiliar with voguing, you might want to think of it as “So You Think You Can Dance” through the lens of a Gay Pride parade. The film takes us into some of the Kiki balls, where various “houses” compete amidst a raucous revelry. The houses are in one sense teams, but they often serve as a kind of surrogate family. The heads of the houses are often called Mother and Father. This grows out of the marginalization that many LGBT people have had to deal with through their lives. Within these houses each person can find acceptance for who they are.

The diversity of the community is seen in the various people we meet. They each have their own story and find themselves on their own spot on the sexuality spectrum. We discover the labels we apply don’t always fit the way we think they should. (This is one of the reasons that Q [Queer] is often added on the LGBT. It signifies that the gender identification of some doesn’t quite fit the categories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender.) Some of those we meet have stories of rejection, others have been accepted by their families, but still feel like outsiders in the world at large.

The film also takes time to highlight stories that continue to be important in the LGBT community, even as acceptance has grown through the years. Homelessness, HIV, and sexual exploitation in term of sex workers continue to be some of the things young LGBT people face as they try to find their way in a world that is often hostile to them. The community that has grown up around the Kiki balls is for some a lifeboat in a stormy sea. The voguing scene is not just about providing expression to marginalized people. It also provides community action that seeks to address some of the issues being faced.

For many outside this community, the extremes of dress and sexualized behavior may be disconcerting and perhaps even repellant. But the community that has been formed in the process is one that provides nurture, safety, and stability for many.

Photos courtesy of IFC Films

 

Same Kind of Different As Me – Trailer

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Here’s the brand new trailer for Same Kind of Different as Me, starring Renée Zellweger, Jon Voight, Djimon Hounsou, and Greg Kinnear.  It’s the story of an international art dealer who must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife–a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the most remarkable journey of their lives.

This film arrives in theaters February 3, 2017.

Let us know your thoughts below!

The Lady in the Van: The Stranger at Our Gate

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“In life going downhill is an uphill job.”

Perhaps the most mind-boggling thing about The Lady in The Van is part of the writing credit: Written by Alan Bennett based on his memoir [emphasis mine]. It seems unbelievable that this situation has a basis in reality. Bennett, a playwright living in London, had a dirty, ugly yellow van parked in his driveway for fifteen years. Inside lived an otherwise homeless woman without much grasp on reality. How she came to be there and the intersection of their lives make for a hilariously entertaining and touching story. It is not only a matter of their relationship, but also of what the writer discovers about himself through that relationship.

THE LADY IN THE VAN
THE LADY IN THE VAN

When Bennett (played in the film by Alex Jennings) moves into the neighborhood the woman’s van is already a fixture moving from one house to the next when overstaying her welcome. The woman, known as Miss Shepherd (Dame Maggie Smith), is far more than eccentric. She can say the most outrageous things, hoards trash, has no sense of hygiene, and never understands that the reality that she experiences is different than others’ reality. Actually, most of the neighbors were accepting of her presence (just doing their bit for the homeless), but they don’t want her in front of their house. When the authorities eventually try to get her to move elsewhere, Bennett offers to let her move the van into his driveway, figuring it will be for a few months. It turns into a very long term stay. It is only after many years that Bennett ever learns who this woman was before she ended up in that van. (In real life, it is only after her death that relatives fill in the gaps of her story.)

Lest we think this is just about a crazy old woman, we should note that there are two Bennetts in this film: the one who lives and the one who writes. The real Bennett who wrote this screenplay (and the West End play that Maggie Smith appeared in fifteen years ago) shows that there are two sides of him that never quite come together. The two Bennetts carry on conversations about their life. It serves as a bit of a reminder that as crazy as Miss Shepherd may be, we are all a bit off-kilter in our own ways. This device allows for reflection on the ambivalence associated with Miss Shepherd. It also allows reflection on the other ambivalence in Bennett’s life, his mother’s deteriorating dementia. At the same time this mad woman is squatting in his driveway, he must place his own mother in a home to be cared for by others as she eventually loses her memories, even of her son.

Miss Shepherd’s background comes to us in bits and pieces. We learn she was once a gifted pianist and at one time sought to become a nun. She also carries a great deal of guilt that she cannot get rid of. Even when she confesses her sin and receives absolution, she continues to believe her guilt remains. (The priest tries to convince her that he has absolved her several times for this and that “Absolution is not like a bus pass. It doesn’t run out.”) The bits of background we learn give meaning to her comment at one point in the movie. “I didn’t choose [to live like this], I was chosen.”

THE LADY IN THE VAN
THE LADY IN THE VAN

Bennett tries to maintain a distance from Miss Shepherd. He does not want to be considered her caregiver. He has merely allowed her to park her home in his drive yet he cannot be totally detached from her situation. As the writer Bennett sits in the window looking out at the world, she or her van is constantly in his vision. Whenever the Bennett who lives life goes out of his house, he encounters this bizarre woman and her outrageous life. It is inevitable that she will become a part of his life, even though both he and Miss Shepherd are a bit ambivalent about it.

THE LADY IN THE VAN
THE LADY IN THE VAN

The scriptures often speak of how we are to treat strangers and those in need. The parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25 teaches us that what we “do to the least of these” we do to Christ. In Hebrews, we are told: “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured” (Hebrews 13:1ff, NRSV). The Torah teaches, “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19, NRSV). In a world and society where many struggle with day to day living, God has enlisted God’s people to be in solidarity with them and to love them as if we were loving God in the process—for indeed we are.

Photos courtesy of Sony Picture Classics