{"id":13315,"date":"2016-05-13T11:10:22","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T19:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=13315"},"modified":"2023-09-06T16:49:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T23:49:28","slug":"amir-soltani-and-chihiro-wimbush-spend-seven-years-filming-the-homeless-of-oakland","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/amir-soltani-and-chihiro-wimbush-spend-seven-years-filming-the-homeless-of-oakland\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Years Filming the Homeless of Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>The filmmaking team of Amir Soltani and Chihiro Wimbush both come from incredibly varied backgrounds, and bring an abundance of talents and interests to the table for the first feature documentary film for both as directors: <\/span>Dogtown Redemption<\/i><\/strong>, which won the Audience Favorite Award at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Among many other hats, Soltani wrote Zahra\u2019s Paradise<\/em>, a New York Times-bestselling graphic novel based on Iran\u2019s 2009 protests, while Wimbush edited the PBS film <\/span>Changing Season: On the Masumoto Family Farm<\/span><\/i>. Both followed their hearts to spend years making this moving film about people who subsist off recycling in Oakland’s hardscrabble “Dogtown” neighborhood. Director Oliver Stone called<\/span> Dogtown Redemption <\/span><\/i>“haunting and magic.” <\/span>The Utah Review<\/span><\/i> adds that it is “a surprising film of resilience and of how even those who are homeless are committed to finding their own sense of place \u2013 of home \u2013 in sometimes the most unpredictable ways.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Soltani and Wimbush both gave us their thoughts on making this film, which became a seven year journey for the filmmakers featuring heartbreak and, yes, redemption along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know you have interests in communities and community building, but what compelled you both to want to make a film about homeless people who recycle in this particular community? <\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chihiro: <\/b>I credit Amir with taking the initial initiative to film the recyclers, recycling centers, and the Dogtown neighborhood outside his home. But when I joined him in the process, I was taken with both the powerful history of this area and the beauty of the people. How the struggles of the people today all came down from historical decisions and prejudices that shaped West Oakland as we know it today. The recyclers are fascinating because they completely negate the notion that poor and homeless people are lazy or uninterested in working. The truth is they are among the hardest working people I\u2019ve ever been around: recycling round the clock through heat and cold, rain, and danger to get enough money to make it through another day. Their issues are real \u2013 mental and physical health, trauma, addiction \u2013 but no one can question their heart or spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in making Dogtown Redemption<\/em>?<\/b><\/p>\n

Chihiro: <\/b>A big challenge was the logistics. First there\u2019s the challenge of tracking down people with no home, no phone or email, and an elastic sense of time. I spent hours driving the streets of Oakland looking in abandoned fields, under freeways, at the recycling center, on recycle routes, searching for our subjects. Then the process of filming shared some of the same challenges the recyclers faced: long grueling hours in hot sun, freezing rain, or in the middle of a cold night; the dangers on the street in some edgy neighborhoods of West Oakland; the health issues they faced that often resulted in me putting the camera aside and taking them to the hospital to get care or treatment. Life on the street is intense and sharing those moments with them gave me great insight into the daily struggles of their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the dangers of filming in certain grittier areas of West Oakland, was the threat of getting jumped for one\u2019s camera gear or filming the wrong thing. The day before my first day of filming, a photographer was punched in the recycling center and had his camera smashed for taking photos indiscriminately there. Another time, there was a fashion shoot, of all things, happening in West Oakland and they were mugged in broad daylight for their camera. Usually I was alone with a recycler filming on abandoned streets in the middle of the night so I always had an extra awareness of my surroundings: what I was filming and what was happening around me.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the truth is, I [personally] never had a problem in West Oakland like that in the countless days and nights I filmed there. In fact, the only time I was nearly jumped was at Occupy Oakland. It was the night before the police raid, the atmosphere was tense, and I was filming Jason recycling at the encampment in front of City Hall (a few shots of which are captured in the end credits of the film). <\/span><\/p>\n

As we’re leaving, a few young men broke away from the camp, and slowly began to surround us. I was caught up in filming, but Jason immediately stopped me as this was unfolding and said \u201chey, they\u2019re about to jump you for the camera. But don\u2019t worry, leave it to me.\u201d With a smile he turned to face the young men, and as he did so he put his hand in his pocket and pressed it outward in the form of a gun. They looked at him, he looked at them, and it was clear that this was not only a guy <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> to do this to, but that he was someone who had likely once done this kind of thing himself, and could happily return the favor to them. So they kept on walking. Thanks to Jason we still had a camera to finish the film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amir: <\/b>Early on, Chihiro and I learned that the idea that you are making a film is an illusion. The film is making you \u2014 when you run into your characters, when you choose your collaborators, when you are in the edit room. But sometimes, it is not making you. It is breaking you.\u00a0You have no more to give. You have run out of everything: love, time, energy, money. For me that was the hardest experience.<\/p>\n

I grew up thinking, perhaps wrongly, that what holds the world together is love. Love is what had held my family together after the Iranian revolution. Love is what brought us to America \u2014 a sense of abundance, a sense of connection, a sense of possibility,\u00a0and belonging.<\/p>\n

It was hard to experience the opposite \u2014 disconnection. And despair. Poverty not as the absence of money, but poverty as isolation, addiction and abandonment, as the breakdown of love, of family and of community. In this sense, it was hard for us, as immigrants, to experience America as absence, as trauma, and as addiction. Especially in a place as welcoming, vibrant, and diverse as Oakland. The poverty was not that of the recyclers, or even the city, or the system. It was all of ours.<\/p>\n

How did you gain the trust of your main characters?<\/b><\/p>\n

Amir:\u00a0<\/b>A few things helped. \u00a0I don\u2019t think of myself as a filmmaker. I\u2019m not into cameras, they are a distraction. They get in the way. They divide the world into you and your subjects. So, fortunately, I did not have a camera. In fact, I did not even know I wanted to make a film. <\/span><\/p>\n

What I did seek was community. I had moved into the same neighborhood as the recyclers. And I wanted to connect with them, human to human, as much to break my sense of exile and isolation as theirs. That\u2019s pretty much how our film started, as a function of conversations. I honestly don\u2019t think making a film is about cameras or even techniques. They matter, of course. \u00a0But the true medium is the relationships. And relationships deepen with time. Where I was very lucky was that as director of photography, my partner and co-director, Chihiro filmed with all his heart, and that made all the difference. Our subjects trusted him implicitly and completely \u2014 so much so that the camera ceased to exist. His grit and gentleness made so much come to life. To me, making a film is about witnessing \u2014 being as fully present as one possibly can. That takes a level vulnerability and risk. That is where the trust is. <\/span><\/p>\n

Chihiro: <\/b>When I first showed up as an outsider with the camera, I think most recyclers assumed I was an undercover cop, asking them questions about what they got up to at night. I learned I had to put the camera down for six months and just show up in the morning with two cups of coffee and sit on the street corner with them, letting them ask me questions so they could figure out who I was and what I was doing there. I just kept showing up and continuing the conversation until one day they\u2019d let me bring the camera and film them as we talked together.<\/span><\/p>\n