Saturday, June 11th, 2005
8:30 - Live music by Jeans (details below)
9:00 - The Films
On the roof of The Old American Can Factory
232 Third Street, Gowanus/Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Dress warmly (it's cooler on the roof than in the streets).
In the event of rain the show is indoors at the same location.
Code 33 plus a short, At Night
THE FILMS:
FIRST, A SHORT FILM: At Night (Hyoe Yamamoto / New York, NY / 18:00)
In this elegantly filmed and exquisitely acted drama, a cop who doesn't look like a cop and a drunk woman who doesn't look like a drunk meet in a park late at night and forge a bond based on late-night New York walks filled with loneliness, boredom and the hope of love.
THEN, THE FEATURE FILM: Code 33 (Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley, David Beilinson, Zachary Werner / New York, NY & Miami, FL / 1:15:00)
The amazing thing about Code 33 is its humanity. This stunning cinema verite documentary spends months with members of a special police task force as they track a serial rapist in a Latino neighborhood in Miami, and the film subtly raises a multitude of hot-button issues through a deeply personal lens. The filmmakers are with these detectives in their squad cars, at headquarters and on the streets. The camera is there when they kiss their wives goodbye in the morning and when they come home to a dark house in the late hours of the night. The film has excitement and suspense, but rather than trying to take you on a bogus non-stop thrill ride, the power of the movie comes from the characters, the relationships, the slow-building tension, the detailed portrayal of the complexity and the monotony of a police investigation, and the drama of the personal toll a long open case takes on the officers who care about it.
The rape victims range in age from 11 years old to 79. Each attack takes place in "Little Havana," and from descriptions given to an impassioned and compassionate forensic artist -- who becomes both counselor and advocate for the victims -- the detectives know that the attacker is Latino. The dedicated officers are themselves Latino, which at first is a great benefit to them because of their easy rapport with the people they are policing. But as they stop, search and obtain voluntary DNA samples from hundreds of men matching one of three sketches, tensions begin to build. Why are so many people of a certain ethnicity being harassed? What«s happening with the information gathered on these potential suspects, mostly immigrants? Is the information filed with a national organization, like the INS or FBI? Is the loss of privacy for many people, and maybe even the loss of freedom for some illegal immigrants, worth the cost of the investigation? In a broad context, you might think racial profiling and data collection are dangerous in a free society. But what if your community is both under threat and under investigation, and nothing is getting done? Is there another way for the police to try to crack the case?
The police need to get information to the community, but they don't want to tip their hand to the suspect, lest he change his patterns or destroy evidence. And so the police have a tricky relationship with the media, a relationship that isn't explored in other films about police, and isn«t discussed in newspaper coverage of crime. The detectives want the local news "Crimestoppers" hotline to report details for them, but when "America's Most Wanted" comes to town, their self-importance and quest for ratings is perhaps detrimental to the investigation. How the cops utilize and are used by the press is another moral quandary that the film addresses from an intimate, behind-the-scenes perspective like none other.
But perhaps the greatest tension in the film is not simply whether the police will catch the rapist, but what will happen if they do? What will he be like? Is he an unrepentant monster, an unassuming loner, or something different entirely? And after all the grief he has caused the victims, their families, the community, and the police themselves, if they finally catch him, how will the cops treat this man who raped little girls and elderly women? The answer, like the film as a whole, is a revelation.
THE MUSIC:
Brooklyn pop-trio Jeans rocks into the Brooklyn night.
