Is there a particular documentary film or filmmaker that had a major influence on your career?
I’m routinely moved by narrative work of many mediums. When beginning to make this film in the first months of the pandemic, I rewatched the film “Hale County” by RaMell Ross. It pushed me to notice and foreground the background. At the same time, I read the novel “Exit West” by Mohsin Hamid, which hinges on the emergence of magical portals that rupture national borders. The idea of the portal impacted how I conceived of making this film.
What motivated you to make this film?
I am an investigative reporter, and in March of 2020, I began reporting on life in immigration detention as the pandemic turned the world on its head. To report on these facilities, I called people detained inside using a pay-per-minute video call app installed on tablets inside detention cellblocks. Right away, I began to see that the video streaming out of these cellblocks onto my computer opened a window into a black box. Through hundreds of hours of video calls, I became, in a way, virtually present as life happened inside a particular ICE detention center. This film is constructed out of those video calls. It is a piece of accountability journalism. It is also an attempt to bring people into the visual world of place meant not to be seen.
Please tell us what camera(s) you shot with primarily – and any other special equipment that you used and why you used it.
The Facility is filmed almost entirely using web-cam footage that streamed out of the cellblocks of an immigration detention center in Georgia. Over the course of 2020, I recorded hundreds of hours of this video, both interviews with people locked inside and video of the background, of people walking up stairs or watching television or praying. That web cam video constrains and constructs the visual language of the film.
Please tell us about any special styles or techniques that you used during the production of your film to help tell your story.
The film is constructed almost entirely from a vast archive of webcam footage from inside the Irwin County immigration detention center.
How did your story evolve from day one, to the very last day in post? Is your story what you thought it would be?
This film was made in real time. I had no idea how it would end when I began filming. That uncertainty drives the narrative of the film.
Please describe the most rewarding experience you had while making this film.
On the same day in November of 2020, both of the central characters in my film were released from detention. Each of them called me on video, but now from the freedom of their homes.
What advice can you give to other impact filmmakers?
My advice is to investigative journalists: do not be afraid to connect in immersive ways with the places and people you’re reporting about.
What’s your favorite part about the filmmaking process and why?
The process of reporting, of filmmaking, or documenting is one of noticing. I love moments when after the fact, as I review footage or recordings, I notice something in the background, or an offhand comment, that become meaningful in ways they were not when I first saw or heard them.
What do you want audiences to take away from your film?
Ultimately, I hope this film asks those who see it to think about the costs of maintaining a system of immigration detention in the United States.
Please list key points that should be covered in a post-screening discussion:
-How I filmed THE FACILITY using web cams; the idea of the webcams as a portal into and out a place meant not to be seen; the experience of detention, an arbitrary and sometimes indefinite system of detention; policy questions about ICE detention now;
Please provide any additional resources (websites, links to additional videos, forms, articles, etc.):
Please use this link: https://fieldofvision.org/the-facility
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