Junior

As I entered Ms. Stewart’s one-woman show, Junior, I was given a "Fox News" badge to wear. I asked if I could exchange mine for an NPR tag or even "The New York Times." The usher was sweet but said that we were not given an individual choice as we sit in the audience. My perspective was assigned and this, I realized, was part of the performance. I was instantly viscerally connected to the narrative, even if not from my usual socially conscious and activist perspective. If only I could take my hard earned open-mindedness and impose it on Fox News the way their conservative (and often appalling to me) point of view was imposed on me through this press badge.

Then the show started. From the moment Ms. Stewart walked on stage to the moment the show was over, I was moved by how she created from many interviews with mothers of the murdered, one story that explores how one mother prepares for the funeral of her son. In a way, I (without the Fox badge) would be a built-in audience, since my own work often uses documentary interviews to craft a fictional narrative structure, but it was the creative muscle behind her writing and performance that drew me in more. Her authenticity and treatment of the material, as a mother, an artist, and an intellect, called out to me.

Ever a fan of Rodrigo Garcia’s 2005 work, "Nine Lives," where he gives women voice through short films shot as one continuous image, I proposed to Ms. Stewart the possibility of adapting her work into a one-shot short film.

In order to adapt the assigned discomfort brought on by the badges in the one-woman show, I decided to put the audience on alert (viscerally) as we follow Ms. Stewart’s character around the house not totally comfortable with taking on the role of voyeur. In the end, the camera swivels around and reveals a camera crew and journalists who have been following her all along. One of the journalists, John Dillon, is a 32-year veteran as a reporter and editor and currently teaches journalism and media ethics at Penn State University.

One of the commitments we made to the material was to question some of the socio-economic “causes” used to explain away the violence against African Americans by police officers. The specific home that was chosen for the set location, the red dress (reminiscent of Michael Brown’s mother’s dress at his funeral), the level of education Junior was given, all these details served to disarm the distractions. We wanted the focus to remain on the realities of implicit racism that leads to these vicious crimes.

As a filmmaker, my work is inspired by the concept of Tikkun Olam, leaving the world a better place than how I found it. The moment I saw Ms. Stewart’s work on stage, I knew that collaborating with her on developing this voice on film would be my opportunity to be a vessel for change.