Now Playing at AFS: Reasons to Stay in the Fight

The summer of 2020 will be remembered as a time when we longed for substantial social and political change. In addition to presenting a novel existential threat to human beings, COVID-19 has exposed the stark inequities of the world as we’ve built it. There’s now a sustained, collective awareness that we need to restructure our ideas about ourselves to reach the other side of this terrifying moment.

Several films currently playing in the Austin Film Society virtual cinema present morally urgent portrayals of how things like economic disparity, corruption, misogyny, systemic racism, and xenophobia were destroying human lives long before the pandemic took hold. This list of films includes, The Fight, John Lewis: Good Trouble, The Infiltrators, A Thousand Cuts, and Denise Ho: Becoming the Song. 

The journalists, activists, and filmmakers that breathed life into these projects have taken tremendous risks to research, report, and edit narratives that resonate as riveting calls to action. Each film draws attention to people, places, and systems that many in power don’t want us to see.

THE FIGHT

(2020) d. Josh Kriegman, Eli B. Despres, Elyse Steinberg

This documentary follows a group of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyers as they prepare for several lawsuits against the Trump administration. Their cases address restricted abortion access, family separation, a transgender military ban, and the potential addition of a citizenship question to the U.S. census. As these cases develop, the film effectively illustrates the contrast between the public discourse and legal machinations surrounding the issues themselves.

A montage of ACLU lawyers receiving hateful social media comments, emails, and voicemails serves as a sobering reminder of how many voices back the hateful ideologies embraced by the White House. On the other hand, it’s encouraging to see that such hatred fails to deter the ACLU from pushing our current systems forward. In the interest of accountability, the film also addresses the destructive consequences of the organization’s strict adherence to principles like free speech. This approach has emboldened voices and ideas that actively endanger people’s lives. 

Given that so many systems perpetuate injustice by design, it’s inspiring to see people engaging with legal and bureaucratic processes that can incrementally bring about change. It’s also notable that those people consider their work as part of a holistic approach that includes voting, protest, and activism. Toward the end of the film, one of the featured lawyers says “We’re not going to solve it ... It’s going to be people who turn the ship around.”

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JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE

(2020) d. Dawn Porter

“As long as I have breath in my body, I will do what I can.” John Lewis says that while perusing the morning paper. He follows it up with a matter-of-fact declaration that the United States’ democracy is at stake. He is gone now, which makes this film an artifact laced with newfound urgency. 

As one of the 13 original Freedom Riders and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1963 to 1966, John Lewis took tremendous risks to confront white supremacy and systemic racism. From 1987 to 2020, he worked to enact change from within the U.S. House of Representatives. His journey from citizen to activist to state official is symbolic of his passion for lasting justice.

It’s striking to watch Lewis recount his own legacy while knowing that achievements like the Voting Right Act of 1965 were strategically deconstructed within his lifetime. He is often referenced as a civil rights leader and someone willing to stand up to a society that is racist against Black people by design. The narratives of John Lewis’ life and this documentary are essential because the hate he was fighting has outlived him. 

This film shows Lewis joking with colleagues, mourning losses, and generally experiencing a wide range of human emotion. This empathetic, multifaceted portrait helps reframe an iconic figure as just another mere mortal hoping we continue to inch toward justice. 

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THE INFILTRATORS

(2019) d. Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra

This film’s innovative fusion of documentary filmmaking and scripted drama makes for a bold examination of how storytelling builds empathy. It follows activists with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance as they work to stop deportations of undocumented people from Broward County Detention Center in Florida. Their plan is to get detained and then get existing detainees out. The structure of the film zig-zags between documentary footage and a cinematic dramatization featuring actors as the real-life activists.

The film is revelatory in many ways, particularly in how it highlights the loopholes used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to justify deportations. In order to be released, detainees have to sign a piece of paper that waives their right to privacy. Otherwise, ICE can use the premise of “respecting privacy” as a reason not to advocate for them. Once the privacy loophole is eliminated, activists can launch campaigns on behalf of detainees that include protests and online petitions that put pressure on the state and federal government. If they can help at least 35 detainees waive their right to privacy, there’s a chance of shutting the entire detention center down.

The “infiltration” plan requires a tremendous amount of bravery. The activists at the center of the story have to embody troubling stereotypes about their cultural backgrounds to be arrested. Once they become detainees, their choices for $1/day employment include administratively tracking their own deportations on a bulletin board. In addition to the multiple kinds of surrender involved in this process, intimidation tactics escalate as detainees gain more agency and knowledge. 

Silenced voices and suppressed stories translate into an empathy gap filled by the designs of exploitative systems. As one of the activists says in the film, “They’re not trained to deal with people who hold their heads up.” 

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DENISE HO: BECOMING THE SONG

(2020) d. Sue Williams

This dynamic and surprisingly hopeful documentary follows the journey of Denise Ho, an openly gay Cantopop (Cantonese pop music) singer and activist based in Hong Kong. Lyrics about love, acceptance, and emotional vulnerability appear on screen during several moving concert sequences that evolve into images of protest. In addition to being a musician, Denise has established herself as a voice against mainland China’s aggressive erosion of democracy in Hong Kong.

By partnering with the Umbrella Movement and similar activist groups, Denise has consciously used her platform to advocate for equality and justice. She actively risks her career and reputation to speak out, even when many would advise her to avoid confronting a seemingly relentless global superpower. 

Denise’s actions are those of someone continuously asking, “If not me, then who?” In the film, her ascension to fame occurs alongside her acceptance of her queerness and her education in the oppressive forces encroaching on the place she calls home. As someone who has had to consciously nurture and practice love, she approaches everything in her life with complete openness and vulnerability. These qualities make her an excellent advocate for revolutionary ideas because empathy is at the core of everything she says. This film is a great showcase of her talents and inspirational energy. It’s also a document of something people may need as the stakes in Hong Kong continue to rise. 

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A THOUSAND CUTS

(2020) d. Ramona S. Diaz

This heart-stopping documentary about press freedom in the Philippines feels existentially threatened for the entirety of its runtime. It depicts the many ways in which Rodrigo Duterte and his authoritarian regime continue to undermine, discredit, and criminalize journalists trying to hold him accountable for mass murder and corruption under the guise of a “war on drugs.” 

A dedicated, outspoken journalist named Maria Ressa is the documentary’s primary subject. By the final frame, she comes across as charismatic, humbled, and heroic. Maria repeatedly calls out Duterte’s hypocrisy, misogyny, corruption, and fear-based leadership tactics while his associates and supporters remain so loyal that some of them would actually kill for him. Maria’s colleagues at a publication called Rappler are personally threatened by Duterte, stripped of their press credentials, and constantly attacked online by people calling them “presstitutes.” They are shown succumbing to fear and frustration on a number of levels. One of them, through tears, says that the resulting paranoia “leaks into every part of your life.”

Duterte’s tactics include the recruitment of an extremely popular blogger named Mocha Uson to spread false information online. As explained in the film, people in the Philippines spent the most time online globally. Hate-fueled disinformation campaigns are tested there before being deployed in other countries. Due to the fact that lies and hate spread most easily, an authoritarian strongman like Duterte—who also happens to be openly misogynistic—is perfectly poised to establish dominance and create his own reality in digital spaces. 

There are animations throughout the documentary that visualize disinformation campaigns as viruses infecting hosts with remarkable efficiency. This is what Maria Ressa’s messaging is up against, and as far as she is concerned, “Something horrible has already happened.” Democracy and journalism are just the first dominoes to fall. 

Late in the film, there is a shot of Maria Ressa addressing people while wearing a mask. This appears to have been captured after the pandemic intersected with the documentary’s very recent timeline. The fact that Maria continues to fight amid increasingly challenging obstacles illustrates the incredible resilience of the few forces for good with influential platforms. That resilience must translate into collective calls for justice.

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Maria Ressa, John Lewis, Denise Ho, the ACLU, and the National Immigrant Youth Alliance fight in ways that are meant to keep larger conversations and plans of action in motion. When systems, governments, and those entrusted with leadership fail, people have every reason to stand up and demand change. The people in these films are simply the ones who stood up first. 

It means something that such films have arrived—and continue to arrive—amid this period of profound change. They are showing us what we might need to build something better.