adopts the traditional American trial method: The story of Eric Garner has never happened to first-time filmmaker Roee Messinger (Roee Messinger). Five years ago, Garner, 43, died in a fierce physical arrest involving several New York Police Department officials. The video of the arrest went viral, and "I can't breathe"-Garner said nearly twelve times when he was caught face down on the sidewalk of Staten Island-became the rally call for the "Black Life Issues" movement. One of the officers, Daniel Pantaleo, used Garner's choke to expel him in August after he determined he had violated the agreement.
Messinger's film is somewhere between documentary and unscripted alternative history. It imagines what would happen if a grand jury sued Pantaleo. Except for the officer played by Anthony Altieri, no one in the film is an actor. They are real lawyers, experts, witnesses, and Esaw Snipes, the widow of Ghana. Messinger, 33, will discuss the violence of American police from the perspective of an outsider (he was born in Israel and grew up in Mexico City) and non-actors before the world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 12. Behavior, and emphasize the importance of performance to the audience what would happen if Pantaleo were in trial.
What attracted you to Eric Garner's story?
Eric Garner was killed during the summer vacation of the first and second grades of my film school. The non-prosecution decision was made on Christmas Eve in the second grade. I think I am not naive about race relations in the United States, but this surprised me and disturbed me in a very profound way. One day, I realized that I was living in a city where this happened, and it was not easy to keep in touch with the people who were going to participate in the trial. This is the birth of the movie.
How did you make the script for this movie?
The traditional or obvious way to do this is to sit down and write a script. I think that if I do this, this movie will become a movie about what Roee Messinger thought should happen, not the current movie, which is objectively possible. I think it’s very powerful to look at the actual parts of the alternative reality and the potential problems it causes.
How many instructions did you give the lawyer? As a director,
not only cooperates with non-actors, but also with non-actors, who know the performance you expect better than you. I know them very well, and I hope they will debate this case as they do in real life. They told me what their needs were, we discussed these arguments, and I said things like "I think this argument is stronger" or "If you insist on this argument to convince me."
Do you think this provides a certain amount of isolation for people who are involved in this matter and know Eric?
I will talk to two people: James is a friend of Eric and he is also an eyewitness, testifying before the jury. I definitely have a feeling that what he thinks is important is that it is important for people to hear what he said, because the records of the grand jury are still sealed. As for Esso, I think this is very cathartic for her. We had a trial within a day, which was a very exciting day for her. This is why she appears in certain scenes, but she is not always in court. Sometimes she would say: "I need a break, I can't sit here and listen to all this." Overwhelming.
Will you shoot one day?
is. The producer of this film is Alena Svyatova, and her practice of the day should be taught as a case study in the film school. It's really great. Everything is clockwork. Each witness has 12 minutes on each side. The replacement of each wardrobe is scheduled and scheduled. My director of photography, Ari Rothschild (Ari Rothschild) manages seven cameras, some of which are operated by students. Of course, this is my first feature, but I have never seen such a feature.
This also shows the amount of work you did before that day.
Yes, there must be a lot of preparation. When I first advertised to Alena, her thought was: "Are you crazy?! The reason I will never be like this is because lawyers can conduct trials even without scripting. They know what questions they have to ask. They know what answers they will get from witnesses. Of course, it doesn’t always work like that, and this is a magical moment in the trial. When an accident happens, lawyers get answers they didn’t expect and their reaction to it. .Because lawyers are just actors, right? They compete in the jury. They hyped the drama to tell a story and were prepared. They prepared a lot.
How do you see people’s different reactions to traditional court drama
What I really like is if I hear people go out and continue to talk about it. There are a lot of potential problems in the subtext of the movie that have nothing to do with whether Pantaleo is guilty or not, but more broadly because of Eric Ghana is one of many events. Why is there never a trial? Who decides when to prosecute the police? What role does race still play in the justice system? If the audience asks themselves these questions from this movie, that is what I hope.
Do you know what to do next?
Alena and I are talking about the possibility of conducting more experiments that have never been tried before, because this is a repeatable format. Not only involves events related to "black life events", but also Involving other cases that have never been heard. This is what we are thinking about. In the past few years, I have written some scripts, which are ready for production.
