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What inspired you to make this piece?
The inspiration for DIRT really came from the gardeners themselves.
Normand Vallee, the founder of a garden on 8th Street, was sick with AIDS. He began to look for some way to make a permanent record of his garden. Our Associate Producer, Catherine Williamson, was working in a garden at the time, and began to think that a film might be a good way to help protect these sanctuaries. She introduced Maria, a documentary producer, and myself to the gardens and to Normand, and we fell in love with the project.
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| From DIRT. |
Tell us a little about the process involved in making this work.
DIRT took four years to complete. Over that time, we began to see how similar our work on the film was to that of the gardeners. Little by little, unsure of exactly where we would end up, we began to fill in this huge empty space. We spent years walking round the area, developing relationships that would enable us to get something really different down on film.
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| From DIRT. |
Do you have any interesting and/or amusing behind-the-scenes stories about the making of this particular work?
For us, the most revealing anecdote concerns the squatters on 13th Street. It shows how much the experience of making the film changed us. When we started the film, we knew they had a garden, but were frankly a little intimidated by the wrought iron, big dogs, and so on. After a year or two, we finally plucked up the courage to go in to their garden, and found them most welcoming. Our final shoot was in a blizzard, when one of them came out and joined us filming in the snow. The barriers between us had completely evaporated. Now all the squatters have been evicted, and the garden is no more.
Is there a relationship between your work as a video/filmmaker and life in the New York metropolitan area?
With regard to DIRT, this is an easy question to answer. We hope that the film will reach as wide an audience as possible, alert people to this fantastic resource in some of the city's poorer areas, and make it harder for the city to sell garden lots for redevelopment. Twenty-five years ago, before Liz Christy started lobbying for gardens, empty lots were used as garbage dumps and as shooting galleries. Children were relegated to the streets. Now there are over 1000 community gardens in New York City, but only a handful are protected against development. The rest can be bulldozed with only 30 days' notice. The destrucion is devastating to the gardeners. In our film Adam Purple says, "When they bulldozed the garden it was like tearing my tongue out of my mouth, so I couldn't talk any more."
More generally, it is interesting to see that all three of us making the film are from elsewhere (Catherine and I from England, Maria from Sweden). For all of us, New York is a massive inspiration with the creative possibilities of life here.
How has the burgeoning independent movement affected your life and work as a video/filmmaker?
Working independently allowed us to make a film that wouldn't otherwise have been made. We set out to give voice to the gardeners and to openly explore their world, their joys, and pains. Free of commercial interest and target audiences, we attempted to make a film that was true to our experience. Screening DIRT in the gardens for the gardeners was for us a highlight. It represented the completion of the filmmaking process. We gave the film back to the gardens.
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