Mumia Abu Jamal, a former Black Panther and current death row inmate, was incarcerated in the early 1980s for the shooting of Philadelphia officer Daniel Faulkner. There has been controversy ever since regarding what really transpired that evening, with claims ranging that the officer was attacking Abu Jamal’s brother in a race-related attack and that he was acting out of self defence.
On the same night the events transcribed, December 9th 1981, William Francome was born, and this coincidence sparked an interest in Jamal’s case as a boy. Francone’s apparent obsession in Jamal’s activism and growing fame has culminated in a new documentary project, In Prison My Whole Life, which was well received at last year’s Cannes as well as the London Film Festival.
The director of the film, Marc Evans (Snow Cake, My Little Eye) was present at a post-screening Q and A session with Cardiff University students, discussing his motivation for making the documentary.
What do you think the film is really about?
The line of inquiry with the film was to go on a journey, and ask questions and not to start off thinking, “well, we’re going to make a film about race, or the American justice system,” you know? I suppose essentially, and it’s a bit of a copout, but the film is about what Mumia represents, because in a way, he’s not quite Che Guevara, but he’s got that sort of mythical quality.
The journey for Will was to get to the bottom of who he was, what he means, and the repercussions of it. In a way, it does become a film about the death penalty, about race, and about potential solutions to social problems.
How did you get involved in the project?
Well to be honest, I didn’t know about the story and that was the point. Will is a computer geek of a certain age who has been spending a lot of time following the trials and tribulations of Mumia Abu Jamal online. It’s tinged with a bit of campaign and celebrity I suppose, inasmuch as it has Colin Firth as one of the executive producers on it, who I had worked with a few times in a few dramas, and he’s very political as a person and his wife (Livia Giuggioli) is very political, and they were at dinner with this kid who is a friend of a friend and Livia asked him what he was doing with himself, and he said he really wanted to do this Mumia film.
So she called me up and my initial reaction was that in this day and age of digital cameras, why couldn’t he go and make his own film, in the tradition of Supersize Me or similar personal odysseys. The truth of it was though that he wasn’t a filmmaker, he was just someone with an obsession and an interest in Abu Jamal for all the reasons stated in the film.
What appealed to you about Mumia initially?
I heard Mumia’s voice, and it’s not just the sort of voice and reaches out and grabs you and speaks to you, but also something that seems to me to have something heroic about it and something tragic about it as well. It felt like it was stuck in a timewarp – the sort of voice that belonged to Martin Luther King or the other great orators of the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Did you find it hard to get people from the government or the prosecution to contribute their ideas to the film?
It’s a fair point and to be honest, it’s a campaigning film and Amnesty are behind it, so it would probably be disingenuous for me to say there was no bias there.
But from Will's point of view, from someone who isn’t a trained journalist used to penetrating difficult situations to get interviews in, we felt there was due diligence.
There’s a lot of Mumia fatigue (in Philadelphia), especially in relation to the death penalty issue, so on both sides there were people selected to speak about it, and we found some resistance from elements of his support groups as well as the “kill Mumia” factions. I feel there is just more to talk about from this side of things somehow. It’s the nature of opposition I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment