A strik­ing new film tack­les racism in Amer­i­ca from a unique perspective

Every March in Colum­bia, Mis­souri the annu­al True/​False Film Fest presents a trea­sure trove of diverse doc­u­men­taries that con­sis­tent­ly chal­lenge def­i­n­i­tions of non-fic­tion film­mak­ing. This year’s edi­tion was no dif­fer­ent, show­cas­ing mul­ti­ple works that dis­avowed tra­di­tion­al con­ven­tions in order to tell high­ly per­son­al sto­ries about iden­ti­ty, class and social inequality.

No oth­er film embod­ied this trend than Rat Film, a mes­meris­ing for­mal achieve­ment that com­bines con­flict­ing visu­al styles and per­spec­tives. Direc­tor Theo Antho­ny uses Baltimore’s rodent epi­dem­ic as a way to cri­tique the long­stand­ing his­tor­i­cal ghet­toi­sa­tion of blacks from a new per­spec­tive. Com­put­er gen­er­at­ed voice over func­tions like a Greek Cho­rus from out­er space, with old maps and archival images exhumed to com­ment on the cor­rupt zon­ing laws and ill-con­ceived social ini­tia­tives still plagu­ing the city’s poor­est neighbourhoods.

While hurt­ful gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions have allowed seg­re­ga­tion and inequal­i­ty to con­tin­ue for decades, Antho­ny nev­er pities the every­day peo­ple who live out these con­se­quences on a dai­ly basis. His inter­views with local rat hunt­ing enthu­si­asts and city employ­ees tasked with poi­son­ing the ver­min help solid­i­fy the human expe­ri­ences so often obscured by a bureau­crat­ic zero sum game.

At times Rat Film destroys the bound­aries of the frame with con­tort­ed 3D map­ping and sim­u­la­tions. It calls out the bla­tant­ly arti­fi­cial qual­i­ties of tech­nol­o­gy and even the medi­um itself. How­ev­er, it arrives at a sense of truth by see­ing the lin­ger­ing injus­tices of his­to­ry from a cold­ly all-know­ing and vir­tu­al­ly dynam­ic per­spec­tive. This is the doc­u­men­tary Mar­tians would make after spend­ing some time entrenched in the frac­tured, pris­mat­ic dio­ra­ma we call mod­ern reality.

Jonathan Olshefski’s Quest might seem aes­thet­i­cal­ly benign com­pared to Rat Film’s bravu­ra film­mak­ing, but it says just as much about the cycli­cal rela­tion­ship between indi­vid­u­als and their com­mu­ni­ties. The direc­tor fol­lowed the Rainey Fam­i­ly of North Philadel­phia for near­ly a decade, cap­tur­ing moments great and small, heart­break­ing and joy­ous. Patri­arch Christo­pher Rainey deliv­ers news­pa­pers and pro­duces records for local rap­pers while his wife Chris­tine works nights at a facil­i­ty for home­less woman and chil­dren. Their daugh­ter PJ shares her father’s love for music and spends hours on the bas­ket­ball court.

Cycles of every­day life par­al­lel character’s chang­ing pri­or­i­ties and shift­ing rela­tion­ships. Time is an invis­i­ble force, rep­re­sent­ed seam­less­ly by pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, birth­days, and PJ’s growth spurts. The Rainey’s expe­ri­ences help cap­ture the nuances of a com­mu­ni­ty per­pet­u­al­ly push­ing back against crime and dis­en­fran­chise­ment. It’s a strug­gle empow­ered by polit­i­cal action: dur­ing a pow­er­ful protest one speak­er yells, ​“Our first role mod­els should be us!” With­out a hint of sen­ti­ment, Quest con­veys the dif­fi­cult task of lead­ing by exam­ple, nev­er flinch­ing from the per­son­al fail­ures and suc­cess­es that can reshape a family.

From the very first scene of Strong Island, direc­tor Yance Ford con­fess­es that her fam­i­ly broke into pieces long ago. The pain felt from los­ing her broth­er to gun vio­lence still res­onates 22 years on. In order to alle­vi­ate the agony, Ford con­ducts an intro­spec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion into her family’s past and the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the mur­der that dou­bles as com­men­tary on mod­ern segregation.

The film doesn’t dab­ble in false clo­sure. Ford’s trip down mem­o­ry lane is an exhaust­ing exer­cise in self-reflec­tion, con­jur­ing up details from a trau­mat­ic past that has led direct­ly toward famil­ial divi­sion. Much is laid bear dur­ing sti­fling close-ups of the film­mak­er, who con­fronts secrets sur­round­ing her own cul­pa­bil­i­ty in the crime. ​“Am I say­ing what I real­ly mean?” Ford ques­tions her abil­i­ty to tran­scribe emo­tions, but nev­er the nec­es­sary intent behind her pur­suit. In these ways and more Strong Island might have been the most per­son­al film at the festival.