Results tagged “troublethewater”

Tia Lessin's path to her first feature documentary as a director started right here in Washington D.C., and carried her through production duties on some of the biggest profile documentary projects of the past decade, including three Michael Moore films (and his TV series), and Martin Scorcese's Dylan doc, No Direction Home. With her co-director Carl Deal, she has created one of the definitive documents of the impact of Hurricane Katrina, told through one young couple who attempted to weather the storm in the Lower Ninth Ward before being forced to flee on the rising waters. Trouble the Water was a particular highlight of the films we saw at this year's SILVERDOCS documentary festival earlier this summer, and the film is opening today for a brief run here in D.C. at the Landmark E Street Cinema, where Lessin and Deal will be on hand at a number of screenings this weekend. Tia Lessin answered a few questions for DCist about her experiences making the film.

There has been no shortage of filmed analysis of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath during the last three years. And much of it has been quite good, particularly Spike Lee's sprawling (and riveting) four-hour documentary, When the Levees Broke, which also screened at SILVERDOCS this year. But one doesn't really realize what's missing from these other films until watching Trouble the Water, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin's take on the material, which is both harrowing and inspiring. And while it's Deal and Lessin's film, the special ingredient isn't something that the pair brought to the project themselves: footage from the ground and on the rising waters from the heart of New Orleans' Ninth Ward in the midst of the catastrophe.