Tag: Dan Parris

SLIF 2016 Interview: Dan Parris – Director of SHOW ME DEMOCRACY

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SHOW ME DEMOCRACY screens Sunday, Nov. 6 at 6:30pm at Center for Global Citizenship (3672 West Pine Mall in St. Louis) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Director Dan Parris as well as subjects Karina Arango, Karissa Anderson, Robert Elam, Brittany Ferrell, Amber Overton, Jocelyn Posos, Faith Sandler, and Derion Tabb will be in attendance. This is a FREE event.

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SHOW ME DEMOCRACY asks: Can a small group of young people make a difference in complex and imperfect systems? Following the advocacy and activist efforts of seven college students in the aftermath of events in Ferguson, the documentary chronicles their thoughts on police brutality and failing school systems, their interactions in a policy internship program, and their visit to Jefferson City to advocate for the reforms needed to improve post-secondary educational access for those who have been disenfranchised by their race, undocumented status, or limited resources. The film also traces the parallel journey of a student who leaves the team to take a leadership role in protests on the streets of Ferguson.

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Director Dan Parris took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about SHOW ME DEMOCRACY

Interview conducted by Stephen Tronicek

Stephen Tronicek: I viewed the final version of the film and I just wanted to quickly say that I think it’s a very good documentary. I think it’s a very important documentary and I think that it’s going to be very well-received at the film festival.

DP: Thank you.
ST: So my first question is, other than the importance of the Active Advocacy movement, was there any other personal inspiration to make this film?
DP: I’d say my personal inspiration was we lived in Shaw. I just got married two months before Michael Brown was killed, and then two months after that a kid named Vonderrit Myers was shot in the Shaw neighborhood just blocks from our house, and I probably had driven past him a bunch of times. A couple days later protesters came by our house. When we heard the drumming and we heard them chanting “Out of Your Homes and Into the Streets! Out of Your Homes and Into the Streets!” I went with my camera into the streets, and I just started filming. So, the first few weeks I didn’t know why I was filming or what I was going to film, but I was just following things because literally every day there were people protesting right by my house. So I just started to document what was going on, and then I had a conversation  with the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis, and that conversation was with the director and another individual. Basically, she told me, “We’re doing this advocacy internship program, and one of the characters is one of the main protesters in Ferguson.” And I said, “Ok, when does this program start?”, and she was said “In an hour,” and I said “Ok” and I ran home and got my camera and I started filming. One other thing, this is my fifth year volunteering with kids from Roosevelt High School with an organization called Young Life.I work with students with similar backgrounds and life experiences to Mike Brown every Monday night. I play basketball with them and we eat dinner together and play fun games and this is a church organization. We share the gospel with them, and it means these guys are very close to my heart and they’re friends of mine and I felt like, in a lot of ways, I was making this movie for them.
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ST: It turned out to be a great film. Have you done any work personally for Active Advocacy? Were you brought into whenever you were doing the film?
DP: No, I was actually a recipient of the St. Louis Foundation Scholarship, so I was a scholarship recipient and I got it in 2003, so I’ve been paying them money every year, so they can give interest-free loans to low-income students or students in need. I was one of those students  so I maintained a relationship with them, but I’d never made anything with them before that.
ST: Why do you feel like there’s such a cultural ignorance surrounding some of these issues in the film? I say that mainly because in the neighborhood I live in, which is Maplewood in St. Louis County, we hear about some of this but don’t see a lot of it.
DP: I would say that when we talk about Ferguson, and when we talk about Black Lives Matter, I’ve found that many people are talking about different things. I think stereotypically, when white people,  from a town in South County or whereever you want to say, hear about Ferguson and Black Lives Matter, they often imagine people burning down buildings, turning over cars, hating police officers, or things like that. And when my black friends hear about it, they feel like they’re fighting for justice, they’re fighting for us. But they’re thinking about human history. They’re thinking about all the things in that motion graphic that you saw (in the film). They’re thinking about the schools that are struggling in the neighborhood. They’re thinking about the lack of good housing. They’re thinking about the lack of opportunity, they’re thinking about the lack of jobs, about how police have interrogated them. They’re thinking about their friends who they know who have been shot by the police. Maybe they were doing something illegal, maybe they weren’t, but did they have to die? And they’re thinking about structural inequality that’s been here for hundreds of years, while other people are just thinking about Michael Brown and what he did and what happened in Ferguson afterward. You’re using the same words while talking about two different things. I think as a community, we’re having two different conversations.
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ST: Have there been any important developments since production wrapped?
DP: In the credits it highlights a couple of them. One big one is that they were given a grant for a lot of money to grow the program from just seven students. So now there are students all across the state that are part of this program. It’s actually 75 to 100 students now.There’s been significant developments on Bright Flight. The stats on Bright Flight featured in the film were actually discovered a year later. They have seen an increased awareness of the difference between merit-based financial aid and need-based financial aid in legislators. The ACCESS Scholarship has been increased to $1850, so the governor, I think, passed an increase. So there has been change and I think they have been a part of it.
ST:  I’m sure they have as it’s such an important issue. What do you feel is the most important thing that Active Advocacy does?
DP: I think the most important is kind of the slogan of the film, “Nothing About Me, Without Me,” and this idea that it empowers young people to be part of the conversation that affects them. The policy work, the politicians, that kind of work, isn’t just for old white guys or politicians. It’s for everybody. Everybody can be involved and they can impact it, and they can impact the things that are impacting them.
ST: Yes, it’s such an important thing that young people are able to affect the policies that affect them. Has there been any other type of advocacy groups like this popping up around St. Louis?

DP: Not that I know of. The people who run the program might know of some, but I think this is the largest student coalition doing advocacy in the state. I’m not sure if there are any others. We’ve shown scenes of the film already at large scholarship provider conferences and other college networks and they think it’s new for everybody.

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ST: I wanted to ask about this specifically. Was the St. Louis area supportive in the making of the film? There were a couple of interviews where people were talking about how they felt that some of the protests were not being handled correctly. I was wondering if the St. Louis area  in general was supportive of the making of this film.
DP: Well, I would say St. Louis didn’t really know that I was making it. I just had a friend over, and she said “ What! You’ve been working on this?” Obviously my wife knows, my son knows, some of my friends know, but a lot of people don’t even know what I’ve been up to. So I would say that it’s really not on people’s radar, but I’m hoping it is going to be soon. St. Louis in a lot of ways is supportive. The composer is a Grammy Award-winning artist from St. Louis. His name is J.R. and when I told him about the film, he was ready to jump on board right away. All my camera guys, my assistant editors, my marketing team, and my associate producer are all St. Louisans. A number of them have grown up and lived in Ferguson and similar areas. The nonprofit community has been very supportive. The Missouri Arts Council, The Regional Arts Council, The Humanities Council, The St. Louis Community Foundation, all of them in the VLAA, (The Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts), all five of those organizations supported the program in one way or another. They supported our partners. They didn’t support the company directly, but I share nonprofit partners that we worked with.  I don’t know if you know this but I’m also the executive director of a nonprofit called Continuity, which was mentioned in the film,but Continuity’s mission is to expand diversity in media production through skills-based training, mentorships and opportunities for untapped talent. One way the St. Louis community got involved is through the nonprofit cause. We had a training program where we trained underrepresented, aspiring filmmakers. A lot of the scenes in the film were actually edited by students initially, and then this fall we had a program where we taught them marketing and had experts come in and speak to our students. This fall they helped with all the marketing. They helped design posters, and logos, T-shirts, and gave feedback on the trailer. Rhey’re starting grassroots marketing on the streets, so the whole film’s been made by minorities who are aspiring filmmakers.
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ST: That sounds like an incredible opportunity.  What is the most interesting thing that happened during production ?
DP: That’s a good question. I think one thing that was really interesting was that we have eight characters in my film, and during the filming of this, seven out of the eight graduated from college with their bachelors or masters. Faith even got an honorary doctorate. Who could have guessed that would happen?

 

 

SLFS 2011 Review: Shorts Program 6, Comedy Shorts

Shorts Program 6: Comedy Shorts includes 11 individual short films of various comical style, for a total running time of 80 minutes. Played consecutively, these films offer a broad and entertaining showcase for independent comedy filmmakers in the St. Louis area.

FLUFF (4 minutes)

Directed by Anthony Meadows and shot by Tim Bowe, FLUFF is an awesome action-mystery-thriller ode to all the kick ass genres of cinema. The comedy is inherent, as the film is cast entirely with colorful, handmade puppets. The central character, a stuffed bear, meets up with a stuffed horse named Lewis (voiced by Tim Gowan) about a strange black disc (a button). As they flee from danger together through the woods, they run into a freaky shot-out stuffed bear-thing named Martin (voiced by Tyler Meadows), who joins them in a violent fight to the death with two sock monkeys seeking the black disc. Carnage ensues, culminating in an open-ended “what happens next” moment. The marionette-style animation of these puppets lends to the cheesy goodness of unmoving mouths and occasionally visible fishing lines controlling the puppets movements. Those who like TEAM AMERICA, MEET THE FEEBLES, or Triumph the Insult Comic Dog will probably eat FLUFF up with a spoon.

BLOODFEST CLUB: DOWN ON THE FARM (7 minutes)

BLOODFEST CLUB: DOWN ON THE FARM is a short, comedic documentary on the making of the trailer for THE BLOODFEST CLUB, a brilliantly obvious horror-comedy hybrid with a certain John Hughes influence that is planned for production in 2012. Directed by Ken Calcaterra, this behind-the-scenes glimpse sets the mood by opening into a Benny Hill frenzy of high-speed filmmaking antics, set to quick tempo banjo music, which transitions abruptly to a heavy metal title. The film interviews the various cast and crew members, more than willing to share the ever-present abundance of indie-horror production war stories and battle scars. On the flip side, the support given the filmmakers from their community is addressed as well. This is a great opportunity to be entertained, while also learning about the exciting, and sometimes dangerous, lives of local indie filmmakers… and about the dangers of working with gerbils.

BOOM BOOM (8 minutes)

Larry and Terry Ziegelman co-wrote and co-directed BOOM BOOM, a dark comedy short about two friends who bump into each other over coffee. Ahmed (Karthik Srinivasan) sits nervously by himself when the loud and obnoxious Jamal (Behzad Dabu) recognizes him and imposes on his solitary coffee. Once Ahmed finally acknowledges Jamal as a friend, the film slips into absurdity hyper-drive, placing the two characters’ serious business of being Jihad suicide bombers on public display, making no effort to conceal their sinister purpose. The film is a, unapologetic satirical mocking of the rules and culture of Muslim extremists, with Ahmed and Jamal delaying each other as they debate and fantasize about what will be waiting for them on the other side, oblivious to the world around them. BOOM BOOM is either hilarious, or highly offensive, depending on your outlook, but the goal is to make us laugh, a goal at which the film succeeds.

GREENTHUMB (3 minutes)

GREENTHUMB was written and directed by Curtis C. Craig, and shot and edited by Daniel Parris, who also had his feature-length documentary GIVE A DAMN? premiere during this year’s St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase. The short film plays mostly as a montage, with a man going through his daily motions of hydrating himself, then hydrating the lawn, inadvertently discovering a novel solution for sustainable gardening. As the viewer, once you get past the baffling question of why this man chooses to do what he does, the film becomes a sort of parable for setting an example for others. I know, it sounds like a stretch, but what I took away from viewing this short film was a light, humorous approach to conveying a rather simple, environmental message.

HELP WANTED (3 minutes)

Another short film written, directed, produced and edited by Ken Calcaterra, HELP WANTED is a silly silent comedy about a stoner dude trying to get a job at an ice cream shop. His hopes of free ice cream are repeatedly dashed when the young female clerk refuses to consider his proposal, but the man persists. One ridiculous attempt after another, from a hand-written resume to the most lavishly lame disguises, the film finally comes to a conclusion. There will be some who undoubtedly enjoy HELP WANTED, but the juvenile humor just isn’t my taste. If this is something you’re into, then by all means enjoy the show!

IT’S A SYMBOL (16 minutes)

A man named Maximus (Steve Gibbons) walks into a grocery store. Queue the lavish orchestral music as Maximus selects a single red rose. IT’S A SYMBOL, directed by Jamie Koogler, follows two actors’ tedious and nerve-racking wait for this rose to finally die. Maximus is an annoying, overly energetic ham. On the other hand, Stacy (Dawn Davis) is the dead serious, pretentious type who demands the rose be dead, as a symbol for her character’s mental state. These two acting partners quibble and bicker back and forth like an episode of The Honeymooners or I Love Lucy, struggling to work together on their scenes. IT’S A SYMBOL plays like a soap opera, if the soap opera was cast by Saturday Night Live hopefuls. As silly as the premise is, silly as in Curb Your Enthusiasm, the film works as a throwback to ’80s era sitcoms. Maybe it’s just my interpretation, but it makes the craziness of the film enjoyable.

LIVE BY THE SWORD (14 minutes)

Written and directed by Stephen Jones, LIVE BY THE SWORD begins with Dale (Matt Wills) sitting at home with a plate of nachos, watching TV when an infomercial for discount swords catches his fancy. Dale is a geek, nothing wrong with that. His t-shirt that reads “Shakespeare Hates Your EMO Poems” tells us he’s not bashful about his geekness. The samurai sword arrives in the mail and thus begins Dale’s creatively destructive adventure. He gets carried away, using the sword in ways it was never intended, and taking it with him to inappropriate places. Like so many stereotypical trigger-happy, gun-loving ’70s era Dirty Harry characters, his sword fills the absense of a female companion in Dale’s life, until he meets Natalie (Kelly Nienaltowski), a woman with similar interests. On a purely technical front, LIVE BY THE SWORD suffers from a number of poorly lit night scenes, making parts of the film difficult to watch properly, otherwise the film is a fun, quirky boy-meets-girl story with a delightful touch of MALLRATS at the end.

MUGGED (5 minutes)

Director Andrew Saunders’ short film MUGGED begins with a creepy through-the-knot-hole shot of someone watching, as a man walks by, busy talking on his cell phone. The man becomes the victim of a mugger, but what becomes excrutiatingly apparent, however, is that the mugger may be the true victom… of a Cable Guy type of unlikely stalker, who follows the mugger everywhere, believing he and the mugger are now friends. The man is an annoying, rude and clueless combination of Jerry Lewis and Kevin James, ultimately leading to a likely and anticlimatic ending. The film is enjoyable, but doesn’t do quite enough to make itself as original as it could have been. MUGGED stars Josh Wibbenmeyer and Jordan Bowlin.

ROBBERS (8 minutes)

Written, directed and edited by Nick Young, ROBBERS screams slapstick right from the start. The two robbers (David Appelbaum and Hubby Clark) exhibit the same level of skill as Harry and Marv from the HOME ALONE films. As it turns out, ROBBERS is very much like the HOME ALONE movies in this sense, except for the hero. Instead of a smart-mouther little kid, the robbers must deal with a drunk man (Devin Penn) whose wife left him for his best friend and has nothing to lose. It’s a nice twist, but not a terribly massive leap from the obvious inspiration. One thing ROBBERS has going for it is a witty, adolescent yet adult sense of humor that comes through in the dialogue. I enjoyed the film for what it is, which is purely meant to be popcorn humor, an adult take on a familiar family comedy.

TIEUR EMBUSQUE (6 minutes)

Alternately titled “Sniper,” this black and white short film starts out peaceful, shot to evoke a serene feeling, complete with relaxing music and cutaway shots of pretty flowers gently swaying in the wind. A man (Jeffrey Glickman) removes a bag from the trunk of his car and takes a stroll through a park full of people enjoying themselves. No one seems to notice that his bag looks suspiciously like a gun case and that he appears to be headed straight for a tower in the center of the park. The music gradually takes a decidedly darker turn as the man ascends the tower stairs, a segment of the film I particularly enjoyed for it’s Hitchcockian visual flair. Even the composition of frames takes on a slight influence of German silent horror as the story reaches its climax. The tension slowly builds until the agonizing, unbearably brutal conclusion assaults the viewer as well as the innocents in the park. Co-directors Jordan Oakes and Hal Scharf take a simple premise and run with it, creating a cinematically strong film that bends the rules of traditional comedy, with an added twist at the end.

THE WORLD CHAMPIONS (7 minutes)

Two slackers with no muscial talent jamming out until one of the slackers’ parents return home. This is how THE WORLD CHAMPIONS begins, with these two daydreaming losers fantasizing about “when they make it big.” All of that changes while surfing the Internet for possible band names when they stumble upon the world champion apple pie eater. Suddenly, their delusions shift from becoming rock stars to setting a world record, believing this will reward them with respect, money and babes. They set out on a series of attempts to break a world record, any record they can, with fame in their eyes. From fastest time running a 100-yard dash, to most spin kicks to a tree in 20 seconds. After going through countless failed attempts, they have a mutual epiphany. THE WORLD CHAMPIONS was directed by and stars Matt Basler and Train Mayer, evoking Justin Long and John Belushi in their appearance and personalities.

Shorts Program 6, Comedy Shorts will screen during the 2011 Stella Artois St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase at 9:30PM on Tuesday, August 16th at the Tivoli Theatre.

SLFS 2011 Review: GIVE A DAMN?

As the wealthiest nation in the world, it’s difficult to define exactly what our role as individuals to the poorest nations in the world should be. To a great extent, this is a decision that has to be made by the individual. Keep this thought in your mind while watching GIVE A DAMN? Native Saint Louisan Dan Parris did while making the film, the title of which is a question, not a statement.

Parris, an average guy with what might be called an average devotion to his faith, made a decision to experience poverty and hunger, so that he could better understand exactly what his place can and potentially should be in the fight against the epidemic. However, as any wise person would do, he decided not to take on this adventure alone.

Dan enlists his friend Rob Lehr, a former minister who has lost his faith and become a rather pessimistic and angry atheist. Rob is reluctant, bitter about the very idea of considering he is somehow responsible for the lives of impoverished people in a country far from his own, but he chooses to join Dan anyway, if nothing else, for the first-hand experience of seeing true poverty for himself.

Dan is grateful for Rob’s participation, but needs a spiritual companion. He approaches his friend David Peterka, a devout Christian and a free-spirited wild card. David could be described as the unknown Christian member of the JACKASS films that’s high on life and open to just about anything adventurous. Immediately, it becomes apparent that Rob and David would not always see eye to eye, adding an additional layer of depth to the story.

And, so the journey begins. Dan, along with Rob and David, his own personal devil and angel on his shoulders, begin in Saint Louis and set out to hitchhike across the Unites States, Europe, and finally end up in Kenya, all on only $1.25 per day for food, lodging and transportation. Needless-to-say, this plan is not without its inevitable hiccups. Relative to the entire experience, their time in the United States is a cakewalk, compared to their time in Africa.

Let’s jump ahead a bit, progressing in the film to roughly the halfway point. This is when things get serious, and the story becomes truly compelling. Up to this point, we’ve been primarily focused on the physical journey, but when Dan and Rob barely survive a deadly plane crash in the African slums, the film splits into two parallel stories. Dan sustains injuries serious enough that force him to return to the United States, creating a secondary story arc, as David and another friend continue on their quest to live on $1.25 a day in Africa. This is where the heart and soul of the film emerges, grabs hold of the viewer and makes its most significant impact.

The cast and crew are literally one and the same, in true indie fashion, giving the story a very personal touch. While the film is technically still a work in progress at the time of this screening, it doesn’t feel incomplete. The story is well structured, just non-linear enough to add anticipation and lock in the viewer’s interest. The beginning of the film does feel a bit more like a television documentary series, but this quickly subsides. The only thing I can honestly pick out, as needing improvement in the film, are select areas where the audio could be tweaked, but the film is otherwise extremely satisfying.

Of course GIVE A DAMN? has visually emotional footage. How could it not contain some imagery, given the subject matter? One of the things the film has working in it’s favor is Parris’ conscious decision not to approach the project in a preachy fashion. Viewing the film never feels like a sermon, never feels like a non-profit infomercial, but more importantly throws varying points-of-view out into the open for the viewer to collect, sort, analyze and use for making their own decision. Yes, there are moments when God and religion take on a slightly more prevalent role, but rarely in such a direct and matter-of-fact fashion that may turn portions of the audience off. In this way, the film succeeds not only in promoting their cause, but also in calling out those who claim to support the cause.

When considering the scale of the experiment, taken on by three guys with virtually no budget and even less understanding of what they’re getting into, GIVE A DAMN? is a tremendous accomplishment. As harsh as this may sound on the surface, I believe the tragic plane crash may have actually been a blessing in disguise, despite the loss of two lives in the process. I do not wish to put words in the mouths of the filmmakers, but I can imagine they would agree with this statement, on some level. I know the film will have a lasting impression on my own outlook on the world. I hope you too will take the time to see the film, and ask yourself if you GIVE A DAMN?

The current 92-minute cut of GIVE A DAMN? will screen during the 2011 Stella Artois St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase on Sunday, August 14th at 2:30PM at the Tivoli Theatre.

Learn more about GIVE A DAMN? and the filmmaker’s cause on the website here.