Community Storytelling: Thoughts on Care, Place, and New Visions

by Amada Torruella, New Orleans Film Festival Programmer

My programmer brain is never off. I am that person always asking friends what they’re watching or what they’re working on. I am excited to hear about stories in development, the new perspectives being centered, and the ideas filmmakers are processing. As a programmer every year I get to witness the big picture, see a snap-shot of what filmmakers are thinking about and making. How does the work reflect changes around the world and in our communities? How do the stories of our time highlight the cultural understandings we ought to pay attention to?

As a Central American creative — one that confronts the palpable legacy of having our narratives continuously shaped by those with little to no connection to our region or who lack in cultural understanding or don’t have our land’s well-being nor the healing of our people at heart — I believe in community care as fundamental to the filmmaking process. I work to champion narratives that aren’t premised on the need to humanize our Central American and Isthmian communities from the violence in our region, a violence that stems from colonialism, imperialism, racism, U.S. intervention, and extractivism.

In recent years the idea of community-conscious storytelling has become a guiding principle for the documentary community. Filmmakers are leading this conversation by creating films that develop in deep collaboration with the communities and environments depicted, often with the work extending far past the conclusion of the filmmaking process. Curating, or programming feels to me like a way to create open spaces for these conversations with filmmakers and audiences alike, where people are being vulnerable, and where we hold each other while expanding creatively.

This work is hard and independent filmmaking can be lonely. When you are sharing work for the first time with a new audience that challenges the inherent norms and formal structures within our industry, there is no better feeling than a welcoming space where your practice is valued, and your perspective is seen as a meaningful contribution to a larger conversation. Participating in the festival space means connecting with like-minded makers, celebrating your peers, and watching films with which you are in conversation. A strong festival program confirms that you aren’t creating in a silo or throwing ideas and sweat into the ether. The conversation created confirms that your input contributes to a collective vision and dialogue.

Care
When reviewing films within a framework that prioritizes impact, I’m interested in the relationship the filmmaker has with their protagonists. What can be said for the ways the community was cared for and integrated within the artistic approach of the film? Were safety and agency a priority? Was consent informed and a living process?

For example, in the short documentary portrait Nasir (pictured below), we get a small intimate glimpse into the life of the protagonist while they go through incredibly private milestones with family. This film stands out for many reasons but most of all because evident are the extensive access the film’s main character gave the co-director and their collaboration in the artistic approach to the film.

Nasir by Jackson Kroopf and Nasir Bailey, A transgender musician comes out to several family members over the phone, as he recounts the steps towards his decision to transition, and composes a song to himself.

In our role as programmers, authenticity becomes an essential guiding consideration, asking us to pay close attention to the depth of spirit and the multifaceted characteristics of the communities that share their realities with us and allow us to accompany them on their journeys. What is the relationship between the protagonists and our audience? Will the protagonists see themselves reflected back to them through the work? It is our responsibility to provide a space where the festival team and audiences can hold the stories and the protagonists in your films with care, and this is only possible as an extension of the ecosystem in which the work was created.

Place
The New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF) nurtures the ever-growing media landscape in the Southeast and therefore acknowledges the harm that comes from extractive storytelling in Southern Louisiana, the American South, and beyond our imaginary borders.

When I think about Place, I think about the way we enter a space and the way we grow to comprehend a place, how we present it for others to witness. As I write this, I am reminded about Listen to the Beat of Our Images (Écoutez le battement de nos images) which screened in #NOFF2021 (pictured below). Using audiovisual archives, this piece immerses audiences in a chapter of French Guiana’s history through a perspective that works against the biases and stereotypes of the pervasive, colonial mentality. Changing the perspective plays an important role in the way we perceive a place like French Guiana and becomes a cinematic point of reference.

Listen to the Beat of Our Images (Écoutez le battement de nos images) by directors Maxime Jean-Baptiste and Audrey Jean-Baptiste. 60 years ago, the French government decided to establish its space center in Kourou, French Guiana. 600 Guianese people were expropriated to allow France to realize its dream of space conquest. Combining field investigation and archival footage, Listen to the Beat of Our Images gives a voice to an invisibilized and silenced population.

Connecting with New visions
When I screen new work, I pay attention to the ways a film team holds themselves accountable but also to any new ways art and non-fiction storytelling shift existing narratives, especially ones that are harmful. Experimentation, creative risk-taking, and a life-affirming imagination are hallmarks of fresh voices that have the ability to change the way we think about making films, gifting us a sense of possibility.

I’ve seen the most ambitious and thought-provoking films as a NOFF programmer, and The Door of Return and There Was Nobody Here We Knew from the 2021 official selection (pictured below) come to mind immediately. As a viewer and filmmaker from the Global South (and, incidentally, as someone who loves to indulge in sci-fi movies) it was special to come across these titles.

The Door of Return by directors Koku Musebeni and Anna Zhukovets is an Afro-futuristic documentary, a thought experiment that is both a critique of our present and a vision for the future.

There Was Nobody Here We Knew by director Khaula Malik // After spotting what they believe is a UFO outside their window, a middle-aged Pakistani couple contemplates alien life and searches for answers during lockdown.

Carving out a unique space at the intersection of documentary and sci-fi, these films come from much-needed unique, historically sidelined gazes that shed light on the artistic and creative fierceness of the authors behind the camera. To search for perspectives from historically underrepresented communities means that you encourage artists that have something different to say to keep going and not give up, you are letting them know that you support their filmmaking journey no matter how unconventional.

It brings me joy as a programmer for the New Orleans Film Festival to be exposed to new work that is courageous; with every passing year, we receive more and more films that aren’t interested in following a certain norm: films that experiment, that surprise and push the boundaries of what we expect a film to do or what we expect a film genre to be. Can’t wait to see what this year will bring!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amada Torruella

Amada is a Central American producer, cinematographer, and artist based between El Salvador and Southern California. As a storyteller that has grieved cultural loss and displacement due to armed conflict, Amada is passionate about exploring the body-earth territory and nurturing communities through collective storytelling. Their work has been featured at Blackstar Film Festival, Femme Frontera, Skirball Cultural Center, amongst others; Amada is a 2021 JustFilms Ford Foundation/Rockwood Institute Fellow, a Brown Girls Doc Mafia member, and Vona Voices Alumni. amadatorruella.com