Trapped
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2016: Nonfiction Storytelling in a World of Fake News
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” as the maxim goes, and that was certainly the case in 2016. Following the election of Donald Trump, the fictional dystopian worlds of The Hunger Games, Westworld, and Black Mirror suddenly seemed pointedly realistic, and our new reality felt mighty strange. Some of the year’s most powerful nonfiction films, including Ava DuVernay’s 13th, Dawn Porter’s Trapped, and Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro, took on new urgency as civil rights and reproductive rights increasingly came under fire. By intercutting scenes of Trump supporters physically assaulting African-Americans at his rallies with scenes of whites threatening black people during the civil rights movement […]
by Paula Bernstein on Dec 29, 2016 -
Locking Gaze: Kirsten Johnson on the Images of Her Thrilling Documentary, Cameraperson
Both memoir and essay film, Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson is an astonishing work of cinematic analysis and alchemy. Comprised of material shot by Johnson for 24 different documentaries over a span of 25 years, it’s a movie made up of fragments, globetrotting scenes that tumble one after the other, announced by title cards listing the location and year of the footage but not the director. Included, too, in the footage is personal material, some for film projects of Johnson’s that have yet to be realized and some home movies shot of her mother in the months before she died of Alzheimer’s. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 25, 2016 -
Watch: Dawn Porter’s Op-Doc Film The Chosen Life
The New York Times today debuted a new Op-Doc film, The Chosen Life, the latest film in a series by independent filmmakers supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures. Directed by Dawn Porter, The Chosen Life chronicles the challenges faced by Dr. Yashica Robinson, the only practicing OB GYN in Huntsville, Alabama who provides abortions. This film was inspired by Porter’s feature Trapped, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking. Trapped will appear on PBS’s Independent Lens on June 20. “While making Trapped, I met this beautiful smart determined woman and I […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 16, 2016 -
Director Dawn Porter and DP Chris Hilleke on “Abortion Clinic Fluorescent Lighting” and Trapped
Documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter first entered the Sundance arena in 2013 with Gideon’s Army, a paean to the work of public defenders. She returns to the festival in 2016 with Trapped, her film about abortion in America. Porter and co-cinematographer Chris Hilleke speak with Filmmaker below about the many hurdles – both aesthetic and ethical – of filming a documentary in an abortion clinic. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Porter: It was really crucial that everyone who shot on this film […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 31, 2016 -
“Targeting Women of Color”: Director Dawn Porter | Trapped
In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story? I was very attracted to this story as not just a story about choice, but about political […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 24, 2016
