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What inspired you to make this piece?
Since 1987, the leading cause of the spread of the AIDS virus in New York State has been the sharing of syringes among injection drug users. Zero tolerance drug policies throw gasoline on the fire that is destroying our communities. For instance, laws that criminalize the purchase or possession of sterile syringes create the scarcity of syringes that leads users to share. And while it is proven that programs which provide users with clean syringes reduce the spread of HIV, in many states they are illegal and the federal government will not fund them. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 Americans have died as a result of shared syringes, including drug users, their partners, and their children. We were motivated to make this documentary by a profound sense of the injustice behind policies that promote death over life.
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| From YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING?. |
Tell us a little about the process involved in making this work.
We first visited St. Ann's Corner of Harm Reduction in 1996, while working on a PBS television program about drugs and human rights. The great energy and people at SACHR were an inspiration. We spent a few months getting to know SACHR before putting together a proposal that led to our securing funds. We bought a camera and started to shoot. Over the course of two years we shot and edited, shot some more, edited some more, raised funding for more post production, etc., until we were done. Making the piece was a life-changing experience for both of us. Frizzi moved to the Bronx and is now making a film titled ALL THE WAY FROM THE HOOD that she shot there in 1998. Emily finds the satisfaction of seeing audiences connect with the work outmatch the challenges we faced in making it.
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| From YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING?. |
Do you have any interesting and/or amusing behind-the-scenes stories about the making of this particular work?
Frizzi went to the Puerto Rican Day Parade in 1997 and saw a young guy who was sitting alone, very down. She asked him why he was so sad, and he said his mother was dying of AIDS. Frizzi spent the day with him. He and his sister, Nelson and Ana Trinidad, ended up being in the piece. Nelson wrote the music that opens and closes the video, too. Seeing what Nelson and Ana went through at the time of their mother's death deepened our understanding of the way AIDS devastates families. It made us unstoppable in getting the piece finished and out there to you.
Our first day of shooting, we were planning something fairly easy. Instead, we found ourselves in the middle of the largest drug sweep the South Bronx had experienced in years. We videotaped armored trucks, a policeman searching an apartment, snipers, and the community's reaction. It was far from what we had expected for that day. Later that same day, we were taping an interview with Joyce when Eddie burst in to tell us that the police had come into SACHR to search Andre, a young male volunteer. When the police saw us with a video camera, they quickly let him go. Andre told Joyce the police said he "fit the description" for someone. "How many people in this neighborhood do you think are, what, about 5'8", a young male 20-30 years old, brown-skinned, wearing baggy pants and a sweatshirt?" Joyce asked him. "I don't know," Andre replied. "About a hundred thousand . . . maybe the whole neighborhood."
Is there a relationship between your work as a video/filmmaker and life in the New York metropolitan area?
New York contains universes within its five boroughs. As big, as crazy, as diverse as it is, New York can surprise, delight, sicken, entertain, even bore . . . all on the same day. As filmmakers, we are invigorated by this city's ever-changing places, people, and stories.
How has the burgeoning independent movement affected your life and work as a video/filmmaker?
It's great that so many people are making films that come out of their hearts . . . true independent work. But funding opportunities and distribution outlets are limited, so lots of potentially great work either never can get finished or never gets seen. Independent filmmakers need more opportunities to show their work in theaters, on television, etc., and like the rest of the arts, we need funding. We need to reach audiences and we need to build audiences for new work.
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