Interview with Carl Deal and Tia Lessin
- Posted: 24th Mar 2010
- Category: Articles
Trouble the Water is the directorial debut of Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, the producers of Michael Moore’s award winning documentaries, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911. Already the recipient of the Sundance Grand Jury prize and now shortlisted for an Oscar, the film follows the story of Kimberly and Scott Roberts, two people with a camcorder who found themselves trapped in 2005 when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and had to fight for their lives against rising flood waters.
Carl and Tia spoke to David Paul Nixon about how they came to make the film and just what’s made it such a huge success:
How would you describe Trouble the Water? What’
s it about? Tia: It’s a film about survival. A true life story about what it takes to beat the odds and survive. It’s about what happens when all the government institutions fail a community and they’re forced to become their own first responders. It’s an indictment of the Bush administration and Conservative policies which have left people in America to fend for themselves. These hard times didn’t start when the levee fell; these guys have had to experience many hardships throughout their lives.
You’ve both produced films before, but this was the first feature that you’ve directed. Were you already looking for you own project when Katrina came along?
Carl: Tia and I had been looking for a project, but it seemed like every time we got started we got another offer we couldn’t refuse. It happened with Bowling for Columbine and it happened with Fahrenheit 9/11, and boy, were we glad to make those choices. But when hurricane Katrina hit it wasn’t really a case of a whether we do a film about Katrina, it was a case of how soon can we get down there and what are we going to say.
So how did you come to meet Kimberly and Scott?
Carl: Tia had spotted a news clipping that was announcing the return of about 8,000 Louisiana National Guard’s men. These were soldiers who had signed up at home to do hurricane duty, but had been deployed 10,000 miles away in Iraq. They’d seen action and suffered quite a few losses, and now they were experiencing losses back home. We thought that would be an interesting way to get into the story, to look at what happens when the spending priorities of the federal government are putting thousands of people in a warzone when they were needed in their own community. When they made it back, it wasn’t really to do hurricane relief; it was to take stock of their lives. Some of them were coming back homeless.
Tia: That story was shut down by the National Guard. They rescinded our permission, saying that ‘Fahrenheit 9/11 screwed it up for all you guys’. While I was trying to renegotiate access, Kimberly and Scott got right in front of the camera. Straight away, we just engaged with them so much as characters. They had a story to tell and they invited us on their journey. We didn’t know where it was going to go or how it would turn out, but we wanted to go on that journey with them.
Filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin
You choose to tell this story in a much more observational way than your previous projects with Michael Moore, which were more boldly oppositional. Why did you decide to take this approach?
Carl: We wanted to make a film that didn’t just point the finger at people who hadn’t done their jobs or at institutions that had failed, but to do it a way that was very personal. We’ve done quite a bit of work with Michael Moore and we’ve been in all kinds of situations where the camera and crew were part of the story, and we’re big fans of that. We did quite a bit of that when we shot the film. We interviewed experts; we had people trying to make sense of it in an intellectual way but we ended up pulling all that out because Kimberly and Scott are such compelling storytellers with a wonderful camera presence. We just didn’t want to get in their way. At the end of the day there’s no more credible and more dynamic correspondent to tell the story than Kimberly Rivers Roberts.
Was it a challenge to both direct and produce?
Tia: I think it is challenging to do both those roles, but it did allow us to follow our creative urges. When you’re just the producer you have to be the heavy, the person who says ‘no you can’t do that’. By doing both we were able to execute our predilections without having to go through an intermediary.
You’ve got Danny Glover on board as Executive Producer, how did that come about?
Carl: We were committed to putting this on the big screen because people like Kimberly and Scott don’t really get seen up there, but we kept hitting obstacles. Industry executives kept talking about Katrina fatigue; the myth that Americans were tired about hearing anything about hurricane Katrina. But we stuck with it; we cobbled together some small grants, and had some wonderful help from the Sundance Institute, from the Open Society institute, and various other charities.
It was about the time that we were going to Sundance that we finally showed the film to Danny and his producing partner Jocelyn Barnes at Signature Film. Their company is really committed to telling real stories with a lot of integrity. They initially helped to raise the finishing funds that enabled us to show this film at Sundance and they’ve been engaged with it ever since. Danny is a hero, he’s someone who always stands up for justice, and he gives so much of himself to fights for justice across the world.
The film’s already picked up many awards and now it’s been shortlisted for the Oscar, have you been surprised by its success?
Carl: Well... No. We believe very much in this film. The story we chose is an unlikely story of Katrina, because it leaves the audience with so much hope. I’m very close to my work and I love the film and I expect nothing but the best for it. Surprised? Not so much, but honoured, absolutely. We’re on a mission with this film to move people, to change the way people think. This kind of recognition is going to help with that.
Have you heard from Kimberly and Scott recently?
Tia: We talk to them every week. They’re doing really well; they have a baby now, who’s almost ten months old. Kim’s continuing to record her music and Scott’s continuing to work construction and they’re both running their own record label, Born Hustler Records. They’ve been traveling across America to promote this film and it’s really been moving seeing them out there.
So what’s next for you both?
Carl: Well we are moving onto our next project, but the biggest part of what we’re engaged in right now is really to trying to create as much change as we can with this film.
Tia: We wanted this film to have a real impact at a policy level. In the states we released this film at a critical juncture in advance of the elections; we screened it at both the Republican and Democratic conventions. We’ve been invited to screen this film at the California State legislature and we’re going to be screening this film at the invitation of the King family at the celebration of his birth in January in Nevada. So almost every week we’re screening this film in front of more people, inviting them to use it to educate and engage people in a dialogue.
Carl: Tia and I have both been involved with larger films that have made a difference. We understand that there’s a power that this kind of popular media can have, but that it doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. So we’re making sure that this film can be used by people who are much smarter than we are, people who are already doing a lot of social change organising all over the country. We see audiences walking out of theatres asking, what can I do? We’re trying to connect people to organisations in communities to try and get them involved. That’s really the mission of the film.
www.troublethewaterfilm.com
Trouble the Water is now available on DVD. For more details see ICA Films
Read David Paul Nixon's review in DFGDocs/Reviews