Suki Hawley Movies
Graphic designer Daniel Goldstein leads the fight to prevent government and big business from razing an historic, Brooklyn, N.Y. neighborhood to make way for a more than a dozen skyscrapers and a new basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets. When the local government announced they would be using eminent domain laws to level the Prospect Heights neighborhood and make way for the Atlantic Yards project, the locals became deeply divided; while some saw the project as a way to bring jobs to the area, others were enraged at the thought of being forcefully evicted from their homes. Later, the government awarded the contract to Forest City Ratner -- a private contractor -- and the wheels of change were set into motion. As construction begins, tensions flare and it begins to appear as if the opponents of the project have run out of options. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 2006
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Originally conceived as an instructional video on how to conduct pitch meetings, American Cannibal: The Road to Reality gradually evolved into something far darker. Documentary filmmakers Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro follow aspiring TV writers Gil S. Ripley and Dave Roberts as their failed Comedy Central pilot leads them to try their hand at reality TV. They start out pitching a show about N.Y.C. firefighter trainees at Randall's Island, but eventually decide that they have to push the envelope and come up with something that has more of an edge. They wind up at the office of Kevin Blatt, best known for marketing the Paris Hilton sex tapes, and pitching a show called "Virgin Territory," in which several male contestants, all virgins, compete for the opportunity to lose their virginity to a porn star. Blatt responds positively, but upon reflection, he prefers an idea that Ripley mentioned in passing, pretty much as a joke, for a show called "American Cannibal," wherein contestants would be put on a remote island and deprived of food to the point of starvation, presumably to see which of them would be willing to resort to cannibalism. Ripley and Roberts have qualms about it, but it's Blatt's money, so they begin developing the show, with disastrous results. Grebin and Nigro intercut this narrative with interviews with reality show veterans like Dr. Richard Levak, Jon Murray, and The Daily Show's Lizz Winstead, who discuss the phenomenon of reality TV. The filmmakers appear to be blurring the line between reality and fiction, and rumors have circulated as to the authenticity of their story. American Cannibal: The Road to Reality had its world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, in the NY, NY Documentary Competition. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gil S. Ripley, Dave Roberts, (more)
One of the better known traditions of the annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, LA is the beads -- most folks wear lots of cheap plastic beads while they wander the city's streets in search of fun, and men hoping that women will flash their breasts usually toss ladies their beads in what they hope will be considered a fair exchange. However, while in New Orleans, those beads symbolize a wild party and low-level exhibitionism, on the other side of the world they mean something else. In Fuzhou, China, a man named Roger Wong owns a factory that produces the majority of the beads tossed to strangers during Mardi Gras, and to his employees, the beads mean work days of 14 to 20 hours, for which they are paid less than ten cents an hour. Most of the workers in Wong's plant are young women, whom he says are less likely to cause trouble or make demands than their male equivalent. The workers live in a dormitory where they can be fined one month's wages if a member of the opposite sex is found in their room. And most are struggling to support themselves and their families on wages that are low even by the standards of a Chinese sweatshop. Mardi Gras: Made in China is a documentary which explores the dramatic contrast between the conditions under which Mardi Gras beads are made and what happens with them once they arrive in the United States; both American revelers and Chinese workers are given a perspective on how the other half lives, and what can be done to make their circumstances more equitable. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- 2004
The hard work of bringing a criminal to justice goes under the microscope in this documentary. In 2003, a team of filmmakers began work on a profile of Samantha Steinberg, a sketch artist working with the Miami-Dade County Police Department in Florida, who creates portraits of fugitive criminals based on descriptions from victims. Midway through filming, one case Steinberg was associated with became a hot topic in Miami -- she had created a sketch of a serial rapist who was believed to be responsible for seven assaults in Miami's Little Havana district. With few leads, Fernando Bosch and Elio "Chills" Tamayo, the detectives assigned to the case, distributed the sketch as widely as possible and attempted to bring in as many people as possible who resembled the picture for DNA testing. While media coverage of the case sent the community into a panic as the rapist remained on the loose, the fact the man in the sketch was African-American led many activists to accuse the Miami Police of racial profiling, with the detectives left between a rock and a hard place. Code 33 follows the case from Steinberg's initial sketch to the eventual capture and confession of the rapist. Code 33 was directed by David Beilinson, Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley, and Zachary Werner; Beilinson, Galinsky, and Hawley previously collaborated on the award-winning film Horns and Halos. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
In 1999, as George W. Bush's bid for the presidency was gaining momentum, free-lance writer J.H. Hatfield contracted with St. Martin's Press to write a biography of the Texas governor and son of former U.S. President George Bush. When St. Martin's published Hatfield's book, entitled Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President, it gained overnight media attention for its allegation (supported by unnamed sources later revealed to be insiders in the Bush campaign) that Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972, but the Bush family exerted political pressure to have the incident wiped from the records. Alarmed by the controversy the book had generated as well as revelations about Hatfield's past which cast suspicions on his credibility (including the fact he was a convicted felon), St. Martin's buckled under pressure (some allegedly exerted by the Bush family and their legal team) and recalled the book. After Fortunate Son disappeared from shelves, Sander Hicks, a young political activist and punk rock singer, approached Hatfield with a proposal to reissue the book through his small leftist publishing company, Soft Skull Press. Horns and Halos is a documentary which examines the controversy over the book but places its main focus on two major players in this story -- Hicks, whose energetic idealism doesn't always mask his naïveté or his endless self-promotion, and Hatfield, a kind but troubled man whose ambition and desire for literary success, coupled with a desire to tell an important but controversial story, proves to be his undoing. Horns and Halos was named Best Documentary Feature at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sander Hicks, J.H. Hatfield, (more)
- 1999
Musician Michael Galinsky of the group Sleepyhead co-directed (with Suki Stetson Hawley) this look at one music fan's troubled life. Unai (Unai Fresnedo) is a young man from Spain who lives for rock and roll, spending his days listening to "music about problems" and bringing notable bands from America and Europe to his country for tours. However, things start going bad for Unai one day -- a club owner refuses to pay Unai for shows he booked, his drug dealer wants cash and wants it now, and Come, an American band Unai is bringing to Spain, are waiting to be picked up from the airport. Stuck on all sides, Unai opts to blow off everyone and hits the road with his friends Ignacio (Ignacio Fernandez) and Mary (Katy Petty) in hopes of finding something better down the highway. Radiation features concert footage from Come, Stereolab, Will Oldham, and El Inquilino Communista. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Unai Fresnedo, Katy Petty, (more)
Tara (Tara Jane O'Neil) is growing weary of her life at the Rocket House, a party pad filled with crashing slackers, artists, and rock bands. She works as a ticket taker at a movie theatre and hangs out with a group of friends who are equally aimless, skateboarding through the streets of Louisville, KY, and just generally waiting for their lives to start. Her brother, Otis (Ian Svenonius), is the arrogant lead singer of a local rock group called the Guilloteens, and one night after a gig, Tara and her pals steal the band's van (still full of equipment) and head off into the night. The next morning they find themselves in Chattanooga without money or food, so they pose as a touring rock band called Truckstop and talk their way onto the bill of a local punk show. Despite being utterly unfamiliar with the instruments in their hands, they pull off the ruse, and the band they play with loves their noisy, chaotic sound. Even after their secret is revealed, their hosts give them encouragement and tutoring to allow Truckstop to continue on the road. What starts as a romantic adventure, though, degenerates into bickering, bad luck, and boredom. Half-Cocked features members of indie bands like Retsin, the Make Up, Rachel's, and June of 44 as actors, plus an appearance by Memphis rockers the Grifters. The soundtrack includes music by Freakwater, Sleepyhead, Unwound, Smog, and others. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi
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