Madeleine Gavin ('Beyond Utopia'), Davis Guggenheim ('Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie'), Matthew Heineman ('American Symphony'), Nicole Newnham ('The Disappearance of Shere Hite'), D. Smith ('Kokomo City') and Roger Ross Williams ('Stamped From the Beginning') join The Hollywood Reporter for our Documentary Roundtable.
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00:00:00 One of my greatest fears for my next project or moving forward is that I really want to maintain
00:00:06 the audacity of I have the right. Whether you give me money or not, this is my purpose.
00:00:16 This is my purpose. And I will be honest with you, the scary part is that I'm not scared.
00:00:27 Hi everyone and thank you for joining us for the Hollywood Reporter Documentary Roundtable.
00:00:36 I'm Scott Feinberg and so honored to be joined today by the directors of six of 2023's most
00:00:43 outstanding documentary features. We are going to go through them one by one on behalf of Roadsides
00:00:49 Beyond Utopia, a film about a South Korean pastor and some of the desperate people he tries to help
00:00:54 escape from oppressive North Korea, Madeline Gavin. On behalf of Apple's Still, a Michael J.
00:01:00 Fox movie, a film about the life and struggles of the titular beloved actor who was stricken at a
00:01:06 young age with Parkinson's disease, Davis Guggenheim. On behalf of Netflix's American Symphony,
00:01:11 a film about the musician John Batiste experiencing his greatest professional success
00:01:15 at the same time that his wife is facing some of her greatest personal challenges, Matthew Heineman.
00:01:22 On behalf of IFC and Sapin Studios is The Disappearance of Cher Height, a film about the
00:01:27 titular sex researcher and her landmark 1976 book about female sexuality, both largely overlooked
00:01:35 until now, Nicole Noonan. On behalf of Netflix's Stamp from the Beginning, a film about the history
00:01:41 of anti-black racism in America, Roger Ross Williams. And on behalf of Magnolia's Kokomo City,
00:01:47 a film about the lives of four black transgender women who have performed sex work and open up
00:01:52 about their experiences and their dreams, Dee Smith. So thank you all for taking the time to
00:01:58 be here. And we are very excited to have you. >> I'm so excited.
00:02:02 >> I want to start by talking about the origins of these projects. Then we'll get a little looser
00:02:08 in the format. I want everybody to just jump in when you have something to say. But just to
00:02:12 establish how we got here. Madeline, one does not really see many documentaries from inside or even
00:02:20 about North Korea because it's very hard to make one. And I wonder if you can talk about just how
00:02:27 you learned about the story that your film tells, this incredible network of people that are trying
00:02:31 to help people there, and how you, you know, what convinced you to tackle that?
00:02:39 >> Yeah. So initially I was approached by our producers. What ended up happening was I embarked
00:02:46 on, you know, many months of research, becoming more and more obsessed with what was really going
00:02:51 on inside North Korea. >> It's incredible. I mean,
00:02:54 a story that I didn't know could be told is, you know, just made possible by the,
00:03:00 all these different people who shared their footage, their, you know, risks, things to
00:03:04 work with you on. Amazing. And Davis, you have made docs about a wide variety of prominent people
00:03:11 before. Not only prominent people, but let's just note Al Gore, Malala, Bill Gates, the list goes
00:03:18 on. Now we come to Michael J. Fox. I guess part A, do these folks all share anything in common?
00:03:25 And part B, why Michael J. Fox? What led you to him?
00:03:28 >> I think the thing that I look for is something, a character that moves me and can influence my
00:03:33 own life. And unfortunately it happened in a really dark time for me. It was during COVID.
00:03:39 I can say now that I was depressed. Our family, my family was fine, but I remember being at dinner
00:03:46 and my kids and my wife would all be laughing and I'd be on the couch by myself. And just feeling
00:03:51 like I was getting older. My kids were getting older. My best films were behind me. And then
00:03:58 one morning I picked up the New York Times and I read this interview with Michael J. Fox. And I
00:04:02 wasn't looking for a movie and I wasn't thinking that that would be a good movie. And he had this
00:04:08 wisdom about him. He was talking about a terrible fall he had. He was doing a Spike Lee movie and
00:04:15 he fell and shattered his arm and he couldn't reach the phone to call the set. And the way he
00:04:21 told the story was compelling, but also had this wisdom in it. That forget I wasn't thinking about
00:04:28 a movie, but the wisdom spoke to me. I was like, I got to read that book. And then I read his other
00:04:33 book and I was like, wait a minute, there's something in here that I didn't understand
00:04:38 about him that drew me in. - Matt, you are known for very gutsy docs that have put you into some
00:04:47 pretty crazy situations. Inside vigilante groups, taking on Mexican drug cartels, ISIS occupied
00:04:53 Syria, a New York City emergency room during the earliest days of COVID, Afghanistan during the
00:04:59 US military withdrawal. I mean, these are just, you know, takes some real guts to go in those
00:05:08 situations. This film is very different, but no less powerful. And I just wonder, were you
00:05:14 looking for a bit of a change of pace or how did you wind up even in the orbit of John Batiste and
00:05:20 his wife, Shalika? - So John did the score for this first wave and we're having dinner afterwards
00:05:28 and he's telling me about the next sort of year of his life. And obviously, which included American
00:05:33 Symphony and we both sort of turned to each other. I was like, yeah, we should probably film this and
00:05:38 document this. But at that point, it's going to be just a process film, you know, leading up to
00:05:42 Carnegie Hall, him traveling around the country, gaining musical influences from different regions,
00:05:46 different people. And then life intervened. He got nominated for 11 Grammys. His wife, Shalika,
00:05:53 got re-diagnosed with cancer. And so the lens had already shifted before he even started filming.
00:05:58 So yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people ask me, like, why did you do this film? It feels so
00:06:01 different than everything you've done. And I don't view it that way. You know, I try to make films
00:06:06 about people that, you know, I find compelling, that are undergoing some sort of massive challenge
00:06:14 to get up against something. And, you know, it's really a portrait of these two artists
00:06:19 navigating these highs and lows of life during this year.
00:06:21 Dee, you come from the world of music. You even won a Grammy for your work on a Lil Wayne album.
00:06:27 But in recent years, you've said you were felt, I guess, drawn away from that community and towards
00:06:37 filmmaking. And I wonder if you can give us a little bit of the context of what was going on to
00:06:43 create those feelings in you of trying something different, and then also how we arrived
00:06:47 at the story of these four women.
00:06:49 Well, I mean, there was honestly so many reasons that led for me to do this film. But
00:06:54 being a producer for well over 15 years, I decided to transition
00:07:02 in 2014. And when I did that, it's like literally all of my connections, all of my relationships,
00:07:12 and funds that were in the pipeline, as we call it in the industry, had just disappeared. And
00:07:21 so, like Davis, I went into a really dark place. And prior to that, I was pretty,
00:07:30 pretty happy and content with my life. And for years, I just could not get back on my feet. I
00:07:37 mean, literally lost my car, my home, my recording studio, friends. It's like,
00:07:45 and I'm so used to being the strong one. That was my role. And how do I even come to
00:07:52 acknowledging that I've been defeated, discriminated against, and that I need help?
00:07:59 So instead of asking and telling people that I am a victim of something that is very hard to hold
00:08:04 anybody accountable for in the industry, I just let everything kind of go. And so fast forwarding
00:08:11 in around 2018, '19, I had the idea to do Kokomo City because there were a lot of
00:08:18 transgender narrative and content. But I felt, from my experience, that there was like this
00:08:26 glass barrier that we weren't getting past as trans people in the Black community,
00:08:33 particularly the Black community. Like there's a lot of content, but there's no action.
00:08:37 We're not getting closer to my community. We're actually getting much further.
00:08:43 And a lot of times, fortresses, every year, every month, there's a new fortress built around us to
00:08:49 even dehumanize us in a lot of ways. So I thought I have to tell the story of true
00:08:55 transgenderism and where we are today. And instead of using the girls that we're normally seeing,
00:09:02 I wanted to use girls that are normally murdered or look like the girls that are normally murdered.
00:09:06 So I reached out to them on Instagram and talked with them and stalked their pages a little bit
00:09:14 and created Kokomo City because they, like me, they were discriminated against, looked down on,
00:09:21 and turned their backs on and not heard. Powerful. Nicole, you were coming off one
00:09:30 great documentary that drew upon archival footage to tell a story that had largely been forgotten,
00:09:37 if ever known, and that was Crip Camp, which you did with James LeBrecq a few years ago during the
00:09:43 dark days of the pandemic, at least that's when it came out. I wonder what your original,
00:09:49 that same idea of having a trove of archival footage to help tell a story that, again,
00:09:58 people either don't remember or never knew, applies to Cher Haidt. And I wonder, when did
00:10:04 she first cross your radar? And when did you realize there was all this stuff out there to
00:10:09 serve as the foundation for a doc? Yeah, you know, it's funny because both with Crip Camp and with
00:10:16 the disappearance of Cher Haidt, they became these really archivally rich projects, but I didn't know
00:10:23 about the archive with either of them when I started setting out to make a film about both
00:10:27 subjects. So with Crip Camp, the footage didn't emerge until like nine months after we had started
00:10:33 the project. And with Cher Haidt, you know, she had just been so, Cher Haidt, you know,
00:10:39 this sex researcher who wrote the Haidt Report, which was just this seminal, seminal work that
00:10:45 liberated so many women and men, principally by teaching people that most women did not orgasm
00:10:51 through vaginal penetration, but actually through clitoral stimulation, which was like this massive
00:10:56 bombshell in the culture at the time. And we kind of live now in a post-Cher Haidt world,
00:11:03 but Cher Haidt herself has been forgotten. So I read the book when I was 12. I found it in my
00:11:08 mother's bedside table where she hid things that she didn't want me to see. That's another
00:11:13 documentary. Well, yeah, that's true, actually. And people have been coming and telling me their
00:11:17 stories of their moms and their copies of the Haidt Report that they hid or made covers for,
00:11:22 so people wouldn't know they were reading them. But I read it and it was a portal into a world
00:11:26 of female sexuality that just was not otherwise available to me anywhere at that time. You know,
00:11:31 I was getting little scraps from Judy Blume and Anne Frank and anywhere I could find it.
00:11:36 But I remembered the Haidt Report throughout the rest of my life. And so like Davis,
00:11:41 I picked up the New York Times and the nadir of the pandemic, and I read her obituary. And
00:11:46 the headline was Cher Haidt, she explained how women orgasm and she was hated for it.
00:11:52 And so I just and then I read a little bit about her, which was so tantalizing, but I just
00:11:58 was burning to know, you know, how did she do the work she did and how did this massive
00:12:02 contribution get forgotten? And so then I happened to have a meeting with NBC News studios and there
00:12:10 was a young producer there who had read the same obituary and had the same question. But from the
00:12:14 point of view of being 35 and thinking like, wait a minute, I majored in women's studies.
00:12:18 How have I never heard of her? So that's how the project started. Roger, let's just note a few
00:12:24 facts. You are the first black director to ever win an Academy Award. That's which this was as
00:12:31 recently as 2009. We're not talking about decades and decades ago. Now, for a lot longer than that,
00:12:40 you have been an admired filmmaker and been working in capacities involved related to film.
00:12:47 But let's just 2023 alone, because I've never heard of a year like this from anyone ever.
00:12:52 You've also directed the narrative film, Cassandra, the docuseries, the 1619 Project,
00:12:58 the docuseries, the Supermodels, the documentary Love to Love You Donna Summer, a cooking series
00:13:05 that's about to come out called High on the Hog and then Step from the Beginning, which is drawn
00:13:11 from Ibram X. Kendi's 600 page National Book Award winning story about the origins and evolution,
00:13:20 I guess, devilish, I don't know what you would say of anti-black racism in America.
00:13:24 What was going on at the time that you came across his writings, Ibrams, and why did you decide this
00:13:37 is the story that needs to be told now? Yeah, it sounds like I never sleep,
00:13:40 but actually do sleep. All those film projects took a long time. So this all came to me in the
00:13:49 middle of George Floyd. George Floyd happened. And, you know, George Floyd changed everything
00:13:55 in America. We watched nine minutes of someone being brutally murdered, and everyone had an
00:14:04 emotional reaction. And as I even I live upstate in this small, tiny farming town, and even the
00:14:11 farmers were protesting carrying Black Lives Matter signs on their tractors. I was like,
00:14:16 what is going on in America? And I remember at that protest, I started to cry because I was like,
00:14:23 oh, my God, finally, people are realizing that what black people matter, like took that took
00:14:29 that took that that brutal murder. And so I started thinking, what can I do as a filmmaker?
00:14:37 And I made it my mission to really sort of tackle racism and the legacy of slavery.
00:14:43 And that's why I did the 16. I started with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me,
00:14:48 actually, which was an HBO special, then the 1619 project with Oprah, the New York Times,
00:14:55 and Nicole Hannah-Jones. But throughout that whole time, Dr. Kendi had the number one New York Times
00:15:03 bestseller for over a year. And that was called How to Be an Antiracist. But he also had the number
00:15:10 six New York Times bestseller stamp from the beginning. So he had two books in the top 10
00:15:16 for well over a year. And I read, I read both books. But when I read Stamped, it just blew me
00:15:23 away because it's the history of racist ideas. And it takes you all the way back to the beginning,
00:15:29 the first the creation of the racist idea that black people are inferior. And therefore, they
00:15:35 needed to be enslaved to be civilized. And it was used to justify slavery. And but I learned so much
00:15:41 about how I myself as a black person would, you know, sort of fall prey to these racist ideas.
00:15:48 And it opened my eyes. And I was like, I've got to figure out how to take this crazy me.
00:15:53 I had to figure out how to take the 600 page book and make it into a 90 minute film.
00:15:58 >> Right. Well, we're going to now shift to talking about how something like that happens
00:16:05 with the different techniques and things that have made this a golden age of documentary filmmaking.
00:16:11 I mean, there are things that if you watch a documentary from even 15, 20 years ago,
00:16:17 there, they were great for their time. But there are there are a lot of things I think we can all
00:16:22 agree that are increasingly used to make documentaries a little more dynamic. And I'd
00:16:27 like to ask you all to talk about ways in which you did that. There are we have docs with animation,
00:16:35 we have docs with visual effects that are used to tell stories, you know, stuff that actually,
00:16:40 you know, Roger as a governor, former governor of the documentary branch of the academy,
00:16:44 stuff that usually got you not nominated because it was right. It was it was seemed to be the thing
00:16:51 that, you know, how this is not what a documentary is. A documentary is basically a, you know,
00:16:56 a PBS kind of style thing, which, again, they were great, but that's not all docs can be.
00:17:00 So I wonder if if folks would like to weigh in about just your own experiences, whether it's
00:17:07 on these films that we've been talking about, or others that you made of how the the genre,
00:17:12 the medium has expanded in recent years. >> I think a lot of it is, you know,
00:17:17 the streamers and the popularity of documentaries. And sort of, you know, for me, like,
00:17:22 Netflix sort of threw down a challenge. They're like, how do you make you make this, you know,
00:17:26 accessible to the to the masses? And how do you make, you know, historical film about racism
00:17:32 accessible to the masses? And we've kind of retrained audiences now, it used to be,
00:17:38 you know, back in the day, it used to be that, you know, just documentaries can only be talking
00:17:42 heads. And if and the academy, really, the doc branch members, if there were recreations,
00:17:48 or there was anything, they would like, no, you're out.
00:17:50 >> The Thin Blue Line was not even nominated. >> Yeah, because, but we've, you know, as because
00:17:57 the streamers came in, you know, they provided a lot of, you know, resources and money and,
00:18:03 and, and also the just this wide audience, right. And so we started retraining people how to how to
00:18:10 rethink the what a documentary is. And then we can bring in I mean, I use actors on a green screen,
00:18:17 a 360 green screen stage, you know, rotoscoped with animation and needle drop music. I mean,
00:18:25 it just it's like a fun ride through racism, which is kind of crazy.
00:18:28 >> You had a creature crawling through a document. I was watching. I was like,
00:18:33 Oh, okay. I didn't know we could I was like, creature. Okay. Rogers go Rogers.
00:18:40 >> It's a new world. And I think, you know, and it's, it's, it's exciting. You know, it's,
00:18:45 you know, there's obviously there's issues around the, you know, the amount of money spent
00:18:49 on documentaries and, you know, and access to that. But it also it's also exciting that we get to
00:18:56 really play and we get to really create exciting films. >> I mean, Davis, you we could go back.
00:19:03 I think it's 17 years since an inconvenient truth. How would you say your own approach to
00:19:10 making film? Not that there was any, I mean, obviously a great Oscar winning film,
00:19:13 but there are things that I think you might employ today that you wouldn't have even back then.
00:19:18 >> For sure. Still, we used some of Michael J. Fox's movies and TV shows, almost like archive.
00:19:26 So he's on Spin City. And he's not he hasn't told the world he has Parkinson's. He didn't
00:19:32 even tell the people on the producers or the writers. But we went back and looked at footage
00:19:38 of him and he's hiding his hand. It's shaking. And to look at that, that footage as archive
00:19:46 is kind of stunning and interesting. The great thing right now is that you can do anything.
00:19:51 But I think the hard part is
00:19:57 you've got there's a factual thing and there's a feeling of inauthenticity. And I think when
00:20:05 audiences feel like you're pulling one over them, that's when it matters. So you can use animation,
00:20:11 you can use recreation, you can use all these tools that you weren't allowed to use because
00:20:14 back then they said you couldn't. But I think audiences are very smart and they know when you're
00:20:19 fooling them. >> Cheating.
00:20:22 >> And so that's to me, that's a harder thing to pin down.
00:20:25 >> Mm-hm. >> Now there's more money
00:20:28 being invested in documentary. It doesn't mean it's easier or you guys have unlimited budgets.
00:20:37 I know you don't. But there are still some real grassroots techniques that in the case of these
00:20:44 six films were employed. I mean, Madeline, I wanna come back and talk about the fact that
00:20:51 I don't know how you even knew you would have, at what point you knew you even had a film because
00:20:56 so much of this film centers on one particular family trying to get out with footage being
00:21:03 captured by people where it was never totally guaranteed that the footage would get back to you.
00:21:08 I don't, there's just so many logistical things that you could have a giant budget, but that
00:21:14 doesn't matter because if you don't have the footage, good luck. So what was taking me through
00:21:19 your process of just going as grassroots as you can go with this film? >> Yeah. I mean, for me,
00:21:28 and I've seen all of your guys' films and I'm in awe of all of them and they're all so distinct.
00:21:32 And one thing I love is in what we're talking about is just sort of it's like the story that
00:21:37 wants to be told is what's motivating the way it's gonna be told instead of some rule. In my case,
00:21:44 once I felt this vast whole of 26 million people having absolutely no voice in this world at all,
00:21:52 I felt like I got to do something all the way and I have to make it experiential. And it was
00:22:01 through my relationship with Pastor Kim, the South Korean pastor, that I was able to do that.
00:22:06 And yeah, we were, when Pastor Kim and I decided to do this together and that we realized that we
00:22:12 really wanted to make the same kind of film, which really brought people up close and personal
00:22:17 to North Koreans themselves. Because I have a mandate always in my work, the more specific,
00:22:23 the more universal. And just you can have statistics all over the place, but getting in
00:22:28 there with one person, with one experience, you can resonate throughout the world. And once we
00:22:34 decided to do this, we decided that I would follow the next two escape stories that contacted him.
00:22:41 And the two stories that we follow are the next two groups. Those are the only things that we
00:22:45 followed. But yeah, we were able to shoot on the border of North Korea and China, a place that you
00:22:51 do not want to go. Nobody really wants to be there. And we were able to do it because of Pastor Kim's
00:22:57 underground railroad. That was the only way. And so every step of the way, the goal was
00:23:02 to create something that really put us in the shoes and made us confront these people who we
00:23:09 have ignored for 70 plus years. And we had to do it in different ways along the way. So China,
00:23:15 obviously nobody, we had to do it in a way that also wasn't going to draw attention to people who
00:23:20 were already at absolute life and death risk. So in China, it was only the underground railroad
00:23:28 and one family member. We were in Southeast Asia, but there were certain places where we could be
00:23:33 and certain places where only the brokers could be. And all of this was directed through Pastor
00:23:38 Kim, the underground railroad, policy people in South Korea, United States, activists in South
00:23:44 Korea, United States and Japan, and all of it with the goal of putting ourselves in these shoes and
00:23:51 getting us face to face with people we've ignored. But one thing I also want to say is not only did
00:23:57 we, the footage from China, yes, I mean, getting those cards and we actually lost, there were some
00:24:04 that were lost along the way by the broker network, but getting those cards was extraordinary and we
00:24:09 couldn't count on that. But it wasn't just that, we had to go into this knowing that in terms of
00:24:14 consent, I had a mandate that all the way along the line, you can't ask a family who's run across
00:24:22 the river from North Korea into China for proper consent. So the Roh family had the right to deny
00:24:29 this film up until the end. So Yeon Lee, our second story, who did give me her consent early on,
00:24:37 because we were still finding out stuff about her son, I actually was cutting two different
00:24:43 versions of the movie up until Sundance, one without her, because I wanted to make sure that
00:24:48 up until three weeks before Sundance, if she changed her mind, I had another. So it was like,
00:24:55 yeah, I mean, I'm going on, but it was crazy. And I have to say, Pastor, obviously none of this
00:25:02 would have been possible without this vast underground railroad that goes through China
00:25:09 and Southeast Asia and Pastor Kim. Well, it seems like sometimes the
00:25:14 thing that makes life extra complicated for the filmmaker can also inadvertently enhance the film.
00:25:24 I don't know that that's a great revelation, but it is worth noting. I mean, like Dee, we talk about
00:25:30 Kokomo City, because I guess there was very little in the way of resources, things that,
00:25:38 you know, the fact that you'd shot it with like one light and that it's in black and white. And
00:25:43 these are, I think if you probably had the resources, would you have done that?
00:25:48 To be honest, I love the fact that I was limited. I do look forward to creating a film with a
00:25:58 budget, but I also know where I was in my life with Kokomo City. I had a lot to prove
00:26:03 as a filmmaker. And I was so intrepid. Like I didn't feel discouraged by it. I was very inspired
00:26:13 by the challenge and or what most people would deem as a challenge. But without the budget,
00:26:20 that's, that is, that was the magic. And sometimes the budget gets in the way,
00:26:27 especially for creators. People don't want to admit that, but you sometimes as creators,
00:26:32 you've got to remember why you're even doing this and remember your first film. And sometimes
00:26:37 even as music artists, like no one wants to hear new music from artists on tour. We want to hear
00:26:43 the things that made us fall in love with you. So I will never forget the experience of creating
00:26:47 Kokomo City with no budget. Matt, we're talking a moment ago with Madeline about
00:26:53 getting people in very vulnerable points in their life. And who knows if they are even in a position
00:27:02 to calculate what it means to be sharing that with the world as things they're learning things at the
00:27:07 same time you're learning things. I mean, there are moments in American Symphony where I can't
00:27:13 imagine a more personal difficult moment than learning about a diagnosis or a prognosis or
00:27:22 any of that. Can you just talk us through how it worked with John and Suleikha to, again,
00:27:30 when you set out to make the film, you said this was not what this was going to be getting in that
00:27:34 whole side of things was not part of it. So how did it evolve to the point where you're still
00:27:39 welcomed in for some really tough times for them? I mean, I think for me, trust is key to everything
00:27:49 I do to get the access that I get, to get the intimacy that I get. And that trust isn't given,
00:27:55 it's earned. And you continually have to earn it day in, day out, week in, week out. And,
00:28:02 you know, that being said, Suleikha did not want to be part of this film. She was very,
00:28:07 very clear when we started filming. This is John's film. I don't want to be the sick antidote to John
00:28:12 success. I don't want to be the sick wife. Like, she's very smart. She's an incredible storyteller
00:28:17 herself. So that was a really difficult thing to navigate because I always envisioned this,
00:28:22 like, love story about these two individuals confronting these obstacles. But, you know,
00:28:27 she didn't want that. And so it took a lot of time to make her feel comfortable about both my
00:28:34 intentions and what this film would be to allow me to film her side of the story, to make her a
00:28:40 fully formed artist's character, and obviously to document this life or death struggle as she went
00:28:48 through a bone marrow transplant. So it was, you know, in the height of COVID and so it was like,
00:28:52 having made a COVID film, I didn't want to make another COVID film, but it was very tricky
00:28:56 from a producing point of view, sort of be on the road and filming all over the place with John
00:29:00 and having to navigate getting to the hospital, you know, and going through a bone marrow
00:29:06 transplant, you have no immune system. So even just a cold could have killed her. So it was,
00:29:11 you know, something that we took really, really seriously and was, you know, a very delicate
00:29:14 thing to walk. - And obviously she and John have, you know, embraced the resulting product. They've
00:29:23 been very supportive of it, but it is interesting that there is a, it's not like just because
00:29:28 somebody one day is on board, you know, people's feelings change, right? You have to walk with them
00:29:34 through that. - Yeah, I mean, very similarly, like I just, I didn't know until we were done
00:29:38 shooting whether she'd sign a release and whether she'd consent. So the whole exercise was an
00:29:44 exercise, it was a leap of faith on all of our parts. And it was just such a fun experience
00:29:51 making a film with two sort of master improvisers. You know, I think we all have this idea that
00:29:56 sort of magic can exist behind every door, you just have to open it. And that's how she confronted
00:30:04 her cancer, that's how he confronted all the obstacles in front of him, that's how they live
00:30:08 their lives. And I love making films that way. So it was fun to sort of dance with the realities of
00:30:14 all the twists and turns that happened over these eight months. I mean, we're filming every single
00:30:18 day, seven days a week, 12, 16, 18 hours a day. So it was a huge buy-in from them and obviously
00:30:27 from us too, but mainly from them. And I owe so much to them for opening their lives up to me
00:30:33 and to us at such an unbelievably vulnerable moment. - I wanna talk about structure, because
00:30:39 some of the things, again, you didn't know in a few cases at this table where your
00:30:45 story was, I guess you never really know where it's totally going. But I wanna, just as an example
00:30:54 of how important it is once you've got your material and you've gotta figure out how you
00:31:00 wanna present it, let's start with talking about openings and just how you begin a documentary
00:31:06 and lay out your case. And I wanna start with Nicole because you do a really interesting thing
00:31:11 that I don't know that I've ever even seen before. Can you just break down, if somebody hasn't seen
00:31:16 the beginning of "Disappearance of Cher Haidt," how it starts? - Yeah, so I mean, it starts very
00:31:23 intentionally kind of with Cher on the cusp of presenting her great new work. An NBC News crew
00:31:30 has come to her little basement apartment where she made the Haidt report and they're interviewing her
00:31:35 about the project. And she's so excited about what she's about to share with the world because she
00:31:41 thinks it can be revolutionary and it can really create better relationships between men and women.
00:31:45 And you see all that beauty, but you also see the crew react. There's a feeling of tension because
00:31:53 the reporter who's interviewing her has to stop and tell the crew to stop sniggering
00:31:57 when she starts talking like I just did and everybody kind of laughed about vaginal
00:32:02 penetration and clitoral stimulation. But there she is in 1976 on a major news network talking
00:32:08 about that. But then I think what you're talking about is that we cut to her in 1994 and she's
00:32:15 watching herself on camera and NBC News is interviewing her again. - And it's the same
00:32:20 footage that we had started watching. We realized she's watching that footage and reacting to it,
00:32:25 however many years later. - Yeah, exactly. And so it sort of did a lot of things for us and we were
00:32:31 really committed to that beginning both because it started out with her kind of...
00:32:37 Before she was denigrated, when she was really being listened to. And it also lets you know that
00:32:48 she was like this enormous phenomenon that somebody would even come back and ask her that in the '90s
00:32:52 and then you're thinking like, "Wait a minute, why did I forget her?" - Right, that's right.
00:32:56 Roger, you open your film in a pretty provocative way as well. I'm gonna absolutely leave it to you
00:33:03 to say how you do so. - Yeah, well, I opened the film with the question, "What is wrong with Black
00:33:09 people?" And I end the film with the answer. The reason I did that was to be provocative, actually.
00:33:18 I did that because I wanted people to be signaled right from the top that this isn't gonna be your
00:33:24 typical... This isn't gonna be some boring historical documentary. This is going to be
00:33:29 quite interesting. And I wanted to shock people and to just get their attention right away from
00:33:36 the top. But it's also the last line of the book. And the last line of the book is the answer to
00:33:42 that question, is the only thing wrong with Black people is that you think something is wrong with
00:33:46 Black people. So I had cut the whole film and at the very end, that was always at the end of the
00:33:54 film. But then someone said, it was actually an editor advisor, said to me, "You should start.
00:34:00 You should put that as... Ask the question and then bookend it." And I was like, "God, that's so
00:34:06 brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?" And just like that, it was such a simple idea, but I did
00:34:11 not think of it. And so it basically lays out the whole film 'cause it asked the question and then
00:34:18 the film over six, over nine lies about Black people, which are chapter headings, takes you
00:34:27 through and it answers... By the time you're at the end of the film, the question is answered.
00:34:32 You're like, "I myself believed many of these lies about Black people."
00:34:36 I guess another thing I wanna talk about is it's great. We're in a golden age of documentaries
00:34:42 where there's a zillion streamers and other places that have things they wanna get out there.
00:34:47 On the other hand, I imagine that makes it a bit harder to break through the noise and actually
00:34:52 get people to know what's important to watch, what's worth their time. There's only so many
00:34:59 hours in any day. And so I wanna ask you about how you guys have found the ways, what has been
00:35:09 most effective at doing that? I think that just to tee up a few things that may come into this,
00:35:15 film festivals. And I wonder if you can say how they have maybe made a difference. Executive
00:35:21 producers, just as one example, Nicole on Crip Camp, Matt on American Symphony. I imagine it's
00:35:29 helpful to have the Obamas endorsing your film. And so... The OGs.
00:35:35 The OGs. But just talk about the... Part of what we're all here doing is highlighting films that
00:35:45 are worth people's time. But there are many ways to do that and it's very necessary, I think. So
00:35:51 maybe whoever wants to jump first with that. But I think it's interesting that you have a whole
00:35:57 separate job after the film is made to get people to actually check it out.
00:36:03 I mean, in our case, we actually went to everyone to get this film funded and no one wanted to fund
00:36:09 it. Even after Don had won five Grammys, literally every studio, every funder. And so we had to make
00:36:16 this film independently. It was the first time I'd premiered a film without a distributor in a while.
00:36:22 So it was really fun going to Telluride with this film without having any clue whether anyone would
00:36:28 want it or want to see it. Then obviously Netflix and the Obamas came on board after that. But yeah,
00:36:34 no. I mean, I think that's the sort of thing that we all deal with. I think we all love making films.
00:36:39 I think we want to keep making films and obviously this is part of the job too. For me, having made
00:36:47 a lot of really intense, heavy films, it's been fun trying to see joy in the theater in a way that
00:36:58 I've never experienced in films that I've made. I think with Crip Camp and with Cher Height,
00:37:04 I think we took a lot of inspiration in terms of these kind of quixotic projects and the spirit of
00:37:11 organizing that's in both films. And the women's movement with Cher Height and then the disability
00:37:16 rights movement with Crip Camp, it's like the scrappy grassroots organizing thing and getting
00:37:20 your friends together and getting a group of people who's super passionate and figuring out
00:37:24 how to navigate that. We really wanted this film to reach younger audiences. So having Dakota
00:37:30 Johnson come on board as an AP and a narrator was really exciting. She's also somebody who's really
00:37:35 into sexual health and wellness and women's rights. So that is got to be also the right
00:37:44 artistic choice, which I wasn't totally sure for a long time what age the voice of Cher should be.
00:37:51 But once we realized it was in that range and then I watched The Lost Daughter again, I was just
00:37:56 absolutely blown away. So I guess I'm saying that to say she came on board as somebody who could help
00:38:02 us get a broader reach for the film, but also as somebody who really is passionately dedicated to
00:38:07 the cause and could be kind of in the trenches with us trying to figure out ways to get the film
00:38:12 seen and known. So I guess that's what we all are, activists and filmmakers. And you're right,
00:38:20 it doesn't ever end. I mean, film festivals though, have you found that? I think every
00:38:27 one of these came through the, at least one film festival en route to release. What is the greatest
00:38:34 value? Davis, I think this started at Sundance for you. You've had movies premiere at Telluride,
00:38:43 Toronto, I believe, just all the... Are film festivals more important now than they used to be?
00:38:49 I think so. Sundance is incredible. I mean, I always find that I can go to some scripted stuff
00:38:57 at Sundance and I might get hit or miss, but the documentaries at Sundance are always great,
00:39:02 forever. And so that's, for me as a consumer, I was like, well, if it's on Sundance, I got to
00:39:08 watch it. I think people are scared right now, to be honest with you. I mean, the business is
00:39:16 shifting, the fundamentals are shifting. Even though the streamers have spent a lot of money,
00:39:20 they haven't proven that they can make money. And I think there's a lot of filmmakers out there
00:39:24 right now who are really worried about, can we sustain this? Can we do this? And for me, it's
00:39:33 like, well... And I hear people saying, well, this kind of movie is selling and this kind of movie
00:39:39 is not selling. And to me, it's like, if I'm interested in it, if I can't go to bed because
00:39:47 I'm thinking about that, I have to make it and forget the rest. Forget the noise, just go make
00:39:52 it. And if you do that and you devote your life to it and if your heart and soul is in it, then
00:39:58 you'll find somebody who will watch it. But that's not... I hope sometimes that works.
00:40:03 - Well, it's interesting. I mean, you're finding that... I mean, we talk about the number of doggie
00:40:09 series and documentaries and things you've had in the last year, Roger, but I mean,
00:40:12 you've also been kind of a point person for the doc community at the Academy. So,
00:40:19 what's your read of it?
00:40:20 - I mean, I think Davis is right. Documentary filmmakers are struggling now. And there's so
00:40:26 many films that aren't selling that are serious films that are not about celebrity or not about
00:40:34 music film. And those films just aren't selling because the streamers and the buyers need to
00:40:43 answer to their boards and their CEOs and they need to make money and big names make money.
00:40:51 And it's hard. I mean, even for like Stamped, that came out of the wake of George Floyd when
00:40:59 they were buying lots of black product. We know that they were buying lots of black product.
00:41:04 The racial reckoning suddenly is over. America no longer cares about...
00:41:08 - Wait, racism's over?
00:41:09 - Wait, apparently the racial reckoning, the people caring about racism is over. And then
00:41:16 the buyers all of a sudden, they're like, "Oh, we're no longer interested in black product.
00:41:20 We're no longer interested in these stories." And we've seen it. We've seen Black Lives Matter,
00:41:24 another Black Lives Matter film. I don't want to see that. And so you're dealing with that.
00:41:29 It was a struggle to even keep pushing this through, to get this out there. And we need it
00:41:37 now more than ever because we're coming up to an election year. We're in a time where books are
00:41:44 banned, where history is banned, where you're not allowed to talk about slavery anymore. It's crazy.
00:41:52 And Kendi's one of the most banned authors in America, but you can't ban Netflix. So it's just
00:41:58 like, it's this battle, but again, the companies have to answer to a bigger power and they have to
00:42:06 make money. And so it's the celebrities that went out and it's the serious films that want to say
00:42:12 something serious that are getting left behind. And we have to figure something out. We have to
00:42:18 figure out another way for people to see those films. Watching Roger's film yesterday, I was
00:42:23 just so grateful that that film is going to be on Netflix. I'm so, so happy. It's incredible and
00:42:31 amazing. And I don't want to see a world where people's, "Well, why should we take a risk? Why
00:42:38 should we alienate?" I mean, in terms of anything that might be progressive, why would we want to
00:42:43 alienate half of the voting public with that? I think that's really terrible. And so I find
00:42:50 myself thinking about kind of Trojan horse films, things that might be commercial or appealing, but
00:42:54 within which I can put a message that's important. But yeah.
00:43:01 - I think if you make, oh, sorry. I was just going to say quickly, I think if you make
00:43:07 an incredibly powerful, creative film like Kokomo City, they're going to buy it because it's so
00:43:15 unique and special and different. And I've seen that now with buyers that if it's a really
00:43:23 powerful film, they're going to buy it. It doesn't have to be a celebrity film. It could be about a
00:43:28 very serious subject, but it's like the approach. It's a talented filmmaker, they're going to buy it.
00:43:33 - Matt, you were going to say something?
00:43:35 - No, I think to me also one of the scary trends is that I feel like executives aren't willing to
00:43:39 take any risks on anything, but especially not knowing what the end of the film will be. So for
00:43:45 like someone who's making verite films, unless the second or third act is on a platter for them,
00:43:50 they're not going to take a risk. And that's certainly something I've seen through the last
00:43:54 20 years of doing this is that people are taking every year because they're less and less willing
00:43:59 to take a risk. - Well, it's crazy. So you're saying
00:44:01 you cannot get financing for this is after, you know, however many numerous other well-received
00:44:10 docs for numerous platforms and they're just, they were scared to do, and this is a celebrity.
00:44:16 - And a Grammy, after its Grammy. - And I literally, I mean, I had studios say
00:44:20 John's not famous enough. - What?
00:44:22 - Like numerous, numerous studios say that. - On TV.
00:44:26 - He was. - That's not famous enough?
00:44:30 - We have to make films that mean something to us and we have to have that faith that like,
00:44:33 you know, it's like you said, when you make a great, like someone's going to be, you have,
00:44:39 the sad thing is it's not always the case. And so we also have to find a way to help, you know,
00:44:45 deal with the films that aren't being seen that have been made. But we do have to also keep like.
00:44:51 - So Dee, you're in an interesting position right now. You're coming off a acclaimed first
00:44:58 documentary film, and I'm sure you're thinking about what do you do next? Maybe you've already
00:45:06 decided, I don't know, but just take us into that calculation of are any of these things that we're
00:45:11 talking about part of the equation of where you want to go next? - Seeing other films, seeing your
00:45:19 films and other films in these competitions, it kind of like, you know, I was telling someone at
00:45:30 Sundance a couple of days ago that one of my greatest fears for my next project or moving
00:45:36 forward is that I really want to maintain the audacity of I have the right. I want to maintain
00:45:50 the audacity of leave me alone. Whether you give me money or not, this is what I, this is my purpose.
00:46:02 This is my purpose. And I will be honest with you, the scary part is that I'm not scared.
00:46:10 That's the scary part. And besides telling important stories, which my next project is
00:46:21 very important, and it's just right in our faces and it has to be talked about. But
00:46:31 like all of you, like it's so important, like you said, we're all activists, right? And we put our
00:46:41 lives and our time for so long into one film. You have to hit so many points. You have to satisfy
00:46:55 your soul. You have to make people proud. You have to speak for people. >> Can I just interject?
00:47:04 The urgency of some of these stories is apparent even in the things that have happened since they
00:47:14 were made. And I'm sad to say that that's very much the case with Kokomo City, right? I mean,
00:47:24 can you update us on what's happened since your film was completed? >> Yeah. In March,
00:47:31 well, three months after Sundance, we lost Coco, the doll, in the film. And
00:47:41 the entire purpose, the absolute motivation for me to do the film was to show
00:47:52 an updated side to the transgender narrative.
00:47:55 Press the reset button, press restart, and let me show you what's really happening. We're in love.
00:48:01 We have support from our families. We have jobs. We're safe. And we love to laugh.
00:48:10 That's all I wanted to do. That was it. And I tried to avoid trauma with all my heart.
00:48:21 And Coco, I met her spontaneously through my best friend. Told me that I really need to talk to this
00:48:28 girl. And as I'm driving to Atlanta from New York, like the crazy bitch that I am,
00:48:36 I spoke to Coco on the phone, and within 30 seconds, she started crying.
00:48:42 And it made me cry, obviously, because it was so genuine. And I knew how bad she'd,
00:48:50 I heard a desperation in her voice, how bad she'd want to tell her story.
00:48:53 And there were so many moments, haunting moments, in the film where she is just like,
00:48:59 she knew. And on a personal note, one of the last DMs she sent me,
00:49:08 I have to tell my, I have a story to tell before I leave this earth. That's what she said to me.
00:49:17 And as tragic as it is, it's very
00:49:20 divine and wonderful that I was able to meet her and film her and talk to her and hug her and,
00:49:29 and I'm sorry, in the future, people are going to be able to find her when they need to hear her.
00:49:43 That's, that's what it's about. Well, to close us on a,
00:49:49 you know, a slightly happier note, I want to ask all of us here to just share if you would,
00:49:57 the feedback that you've received to the, your film being out in the world that has met,
00:50:02 I don't want to say the most, because maybe there's ties or whatever, but
00:50:07 among the most meaningful feedback that you've received. Roger, you want to start us off?
00:50:13 - Sorry, I have to take in what you just, what you just said. It's a lot to take in and,
00:50:21 and, and there's, I mean, I have to thank you for your, your, your, your strength and your
00:50:27 bravery because there's nothing stronger and more brave than a Black woman and a Black trans woman.
00:50:32 I mean, hands down. I, you know, it's been incredible because
00:50:42 I didn't know what to expect from different types of audiences, from Black audiences and, and, and,
00:50:48 and from, and from White audiences. And I've had both Black people and White people and everyone
00:50:55 in between come up to me in tears, you know, White people, their eyes opened and transformed,
00:51:01 Black people felt heard, you know, and there's this point, there's this character in the film
00:51:08 called Phyllis Wheatley, who was a young girl who was the first sort of artist, poet, and she was
00:51:14 recognized. She was questioned by the White, including John Hancock, the White men and said,
00:51:19 "How could you have written these poems?" And she had to prove it. And she, she proved that,
00:51:24 and it's, well, it's what we call a Phyllis Wheatley moment because, you know, Kenji Brown
00:51:30 Jackson, you know, many Black women have had to prove themselves in front of, you know, White men.
00:51:38 We all have a Phyllis Wheatley moment. And so I've had countless Black people come up to me
00:51:44 and want to tell me their Phyllis Wheatley moment in tears, because it's something that we have to
00:51:50 deal with. We have to deal with the, the, the sort of, you know, web of racist ideas all around us
00:51:55 as Black people in America every day. And it is, it can be overwhelming. It can be, it can be so
00:52:03 daunting. It's hard to like, you know, just move forward through it. So to feel heard and to be
00:52:09 able to talk about, you know, your Phyllis Wheatley moment, that was really powerful to me
00:52:14 and, and the response to the film. Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like both of our
00:52:20 films are about kind of the history of ideas, you know, and, and, and that can be a hard thing to
00:52:28 try to create a cinematic immersive experience about, you know, and, and so I think the response
00:52:36 is kind of similar, I think, though, like we, we all need that. We all, we all hunger for that,
00:52:41 like, you know, getting some clarity about the oppressive structures that are, that are harming
00:52:49 us and kind of like the most intimate parts of our life. And so for Cher Haidt, you know, I think
00:52:54 there's a sense of kind of something being acknowledged, which is never acknowledged
00:53:03 and discussed. And so as I travel around the country, it really shifts like in Florida,
00:53:10 you know, because of everything we were talking about that's going on in Florida,
00:53:15 people are really responding to Anita Bryant and seeing that footage of, of, of her war on
00:53:21 LGBTQ people and seeing, you know, the rise of the Christian right in the film. When I was in Ohio,
00:53:30 women were coming up to me and literally couldn't even talk because they had friends who were like
00:53:36 friends or relatives, whatever connections who were really being harmed physically by the
00:53:41 restrictive abortion laws. And I think maybe the most meaningful thing to me is to have
00:53:47 younger people coming up and feeling like knowing about the story of Cher Haidt and, and, and having
00:53:54 this topic resurfaced is, is healing to them because Cher was very prescient about how she
00:54:00 looked at sexuality and gender. And so even though the story is out of the second wave feminist
00:54:05 movement, I think she was really looking at a world that would be, would provide equality and
00:54:17 true democracy to people regardless of how they express their sexuality or gender. And so my hope
00:54:24 is that younger, the younger generation will take her as an icon. And I think one thing we can do
00:54:29 as documentary filmmakers is kind of restore really important stories out of our history
00:54:34 that have been forgotten to people in a way that is empowering and can help fuel the movements of
00:54:39 the future. When I talked to Michael J. Fox about doing this movie, he said one thing to me,
00:54:46 he said, no violins. And I remember being, when we're mixing the movie, there was violins in the
00:54:57 music. And I was like, oh fuck. I hope he was speaking metaphorically. But we are at Sundance
00:55:07 and there's this moment where you see him wake up and we're used to Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly
00:55:17 and jumping over the hoods of cars. And you see him and he's now 62 and he's struggling to walk
00:55:23 to the bathroom and he's brushing his teeth and his hand is shaking. And then he makes this joke.
00:55:28 And at the end of the screening, he just grabbed my hand, he squeezed it and just said, thank you.
00:55:34 And I think it's a unit, it's a thing that we're all kind of coming up in each one of our stories,
00:55:40 which is like, you know, the gifts that what we all do is we take people to a place
00:55:45 that other people can't go or they misunderstand, even though these films are so different.
00:55:52 That's the gift that he can be seen in a way that he should be seen.
00:55:57 I think one of the most memorable responses, it was actually the night of the premiere in Sundance.
00:56:08 It's a black woman. She walked up to me, she was five months pregnant and she says,
00:56:15 I can't wait for my husband to see this film. This film inspired me to love my child differently.
00:56:25 And it was such a relief because online we're so used to seeing things perpetuated, you know,
00:56:34 or encouraged, you know, especially, I mean, the black community is holding on with Dear Life.
00:56:40 Like we are so divided and we're so distracted and so weakened and torn down. And the last thing
00:56:47 I want is a black woman to walk up to me and feel attacked or not seen or heard.
00:56:52 So that moment she said that, I just, it was just, it was relief.
00:56:58 I mean, I think a couple of things. I think we're obviously living through a very heavy time right
00:57:03 now. And I feel like a lot of the response to the film has been admiring John and Sri Lanka
00:57:09 and how they confront that heaviness, how they use art and creativity as a survival mechanism
00:57:16 in their own words. And I think on another level, I don't know, we all make these films for different
00:57:25 reasons. And I always try to honor the truth. Truth is obviously very subjective, but I always
00:57:32 try to honor the truth of those who I'm filming with. And so to screen the film for John and Sri
00:57:37 Lanka and to have them acknowledge that I quote unquote got them right or got this moment in time
00:57:45 right, that meant the world to me. And as someone whose father who battled cancer for most of my
00:57:53 life, whose life was miraculously saved at the very hospital that Sri Lanka was treated at,
00:57:59 it meant a lot to me to be able to tell a cancer story. Because I think all of us have been touched
00:58:05 by cancer in some way. And so there's been tons of people came up in tears, caregivers, patients,
00:58:12 we asked in the film in that way. It's so much of what everyone said, just,
00:58:18 I mean, for me, the response of audiences, the emotional response of audiences feeling
00:58:29 this connection with people from halfway around the world who they'd never even probably thought
00:58:34 of before and certainly would never have met has been so incredible. And just people wanting to
00:58:42 advocate for North Koreans and North Koreans need us to do that because unfortunately,
00:58:48 they do not have the opportunity for their voices to be heard by themselves.
00:58:52 And then, and so that's so important to me that we are, when we talk about the nukes,
00:58:59 we have to talk about the people every time, every fucking time. And then for the North Koreans who
00:59:06 now have become like family for me, and just how much they are so happy and relieved and excited
00:59:16 about this story coming forward. And they've been advocating, they've been traveling with us,
00:59:21 Soyeon, Pastor Kim, the Roh family, Washington, DC, protesting against the Chinese government,
00:59:26 writing letters to the North Korean regime, like just the way that that's activated also because
00:59:32 North Koreans are so often cut off from their family, as you see in our film with one person,
00:59:36 that like this action, this advocacy is a way to feel connected to people who they may never speak
00:59:43 to again. And so it's been like the response on both sides, just like bringing people forward,
00:59:50 bringing all of our people and messages forward that aren't necessarily being seen that we can
00:59:56 help to bring and, you know, inspire compassion and hopefully some kind of change in this
01:00:03 crazy world that we're in. Well, it's obviously, again, an incredible time for documentaries and
01:00:11 in large part because of these six films that we're talking about today. They're very emblematic
01:00:17 of that. So thank you guys for the work and for taking the time to be here and enjoy the rest of
01:00:23 the ride. Thank you.
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