Stories untold, but also unheard

Film students learn about themselves, their subjects

MIDDLETOWN — A Wesleyan University film studies class assignment that delves into the lives of ordinary people and their unique experiences is changing students’ perspectives of the world, and often profoundly affecting their understanding of what lies outside campus.

These stories were filmed in Middletown and the greater Hartford area.

They tell the stories of first-time voters in the midterm elections (“I Will Not Go Alone,”), a transgender youth activist in Middletown (“I am Malik”), celebrated Connecticut jazz artists Saskia Laroo and Warren Byrd (“Jazzy Matrimony”), firstgeneration Americans (“First Vote,”) and more.

For the past three years, students have made documentaries about people in Middletown for a popular class with Visiting Assistant Professor of Film Studies Sadia Shepard. These young people are told to get outside campus, in Middletown and other nearby areas, to build a relationship with their subjects during the filming process to more accurately portray them on screen.

The resulting eight-minute shorts, a challenging project for these young filmmakers, were screened Feb. 5 at The Buttonwood Tree on Main Street.

“Documentary filmmaking at its best can be not just a mode of filmmaking, but also a way to engage with the world. This practice becomes a way of learning about where we are in the world, learning how to build and create empathy from other people’s perspectives, and think about and actively become engaged citizens,” Shepard said.

The project, given to students during the first week of class, involved visiting Main Street with cameras, trying to engage passersby in conversation. They eventually asked if they were interested in participating in the project.

“It’s not just about how to work the camera. It’s how to approach someone and say, ‘Can I film?’ ” Shepard said.

“It’s not about taking images, but learning how to collaborate with other people,” she added.

Myles Johnson went to Hartford with his group after being introduced to wife and husband Laroo (considered the Miles Davis of Amsterdam) and Byrd by Anne-Marie McEwen, executive director of The Buttonwood Tree.

“It was meant to bridge a small group of Wesleyan students and the people of Middletown,” he said of the assignment. “There’s not much communication between us and them. It was a chance to get out there and meet people to show we care, and we’re not just up on the hill,” Johnson said.

“It’s a lot different from what you think it is coming in. I assumed it was a college town, which it is pretty much not. It’s a college in a town rather a college town,” he added.

The students spentd hours and hours with their subjects, and, as life often goes, they experienced some challenging situations. “There are moments along the way when there’s doubt, confusion. Things go wrong inevitably, because we’re working with real stories and real people,” Shepard said.

Joseph Cohen worked on the story about an Indian family that emigrated to the United States. It was based on the naturalization ceremony in October at the Elks Club in Middletown. “That was so American and patriotic,” he said.

Experiences these subjects have generously shared includes innermost revelations, as well as personal mementos, such as a family photograph the mother uses to point out her two girls and husband from years ago. In another scene, the father shows his passport, laughing at his image from younger years.

“I was impressed by how [U.S. citizens] and ‘the others’ often are very different from one another. Despite these big cultural differences that you might think it would impact life for the children growing up. It’s not as far apart from the U.S. (experience) that you would expect. There’s some universality to growing up, wherever you are,” Cohen said.

More than half of “Jazzy Matrimony” is shot from outside the couple’s home recording studio: a cramped room with very low ceilings and no wiggle room. The viewer witnesses not only how well the two meld their musical expressions, but the intimacy they share. “For filming, that was a dream,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s crew used a handheld camera and filmed very close to the couple rather than shooting entirely on a tripod in a static or impersonal way, Johnson said. “Overall, we wanted to get a homey feel just because of the way they perform. What they do feels very passionate,” he said.

“These stories are untold, but also unheard. Stories are told all the time. It’s a question of who’s listening,” Shepard said.

For the students and their professor, the screening was revelatory. “It’s an enormously exciting moment. There’s standing room only. We were sitting on the floor, all the way up to the screen. There’s no greater thrill for filmmakers than to share their work with an audience, also in a cultural center where they are living,” Shepard said.

The filmmaking process comes full circle when the documentarians see the audience react to their art. “To sit there and watch people’s faces, watch people laughing at the joke we made sure to include, you could see what they were thinking, and it was beyond surreal. It was the jet fuel I needed,” Cohen said.

“I am Malik” arose from one student’s frustration of having person after person declined to be interviewed. She and her crew walked into a cellphone store in exasperation and ended up talking to employees. There, she found a young person undergoing hormone injections to transition to male.

“It’s a really thoughtful portrayal, and his journey that he’s still on. It came from a chance encounter of a student walking down Main Street,” Sheperd said.

In “First Vote,” Alessandra Rizzo, 18, had three subjects: a Jamaican immigrant, an employee of Secretary of State Denise Merrill who also emigrated to America, and an Indian immigrant, all whom she met at the naturalization. It was also her first time voting.

“We have different backgrounds, but at the end of the day, [she and her subject] were so glad to do what we were able to do in November,” said Rizzo, who also worried he and his family might be disappointed in the film.

“That was a big concern of mine. These people are trusting you to represent them, and if you get it wrong, it could be devastating. It’s a lot of responsibility,” she said.

Contributed photo Malik McClain, of Middletown, a transgender youth activist, was the subject of “I am Malik,” a documentary about a 19-year-old who found happiness while transitioning into a male. The students found him to be a willing subject after many on Main Street declined to be filmed.