An unexpected story

I was tracking down an old colleague from my days at WCCO -TV  in Minneapolis, Ann Rubinstein, then  a fine reporter, and discivered she had exec produced a couple of recent docs, including one that is a gem of a  story.




Trailer

This is  a film about Duke track coach  Al Buehler .  Chances are you've never heard of him. I certainly hadn't.  But his is a remarkable story that makes you feel good finally knowing about him .


What struck me as most telling aboit his story is the way he integrated black athletes from  a nearby black college, North Carolina Central,  with his white athletes at Duke during the days of the deeply segregated South. ( Dukle had no black students at the time ) He just thought it was the right thing to do, accomplished his  mission and amazingly got away with it at a time of great racial turmoil around the civil  rights movement. 

His  partneship with Dr. Leroy Walker , the black coach at North Carolina Central , is another great story in the film -- the way they pulled their teams together in practices at the pristine Duke track facilities  and how they divided their turf, Buehler coaching  the distance runners, Walker coaching the sprinters.  The men complemented each  other in many  ways --Buehler, the inside  man  quietly  organizing  the details, Walker the outside man,  becoming the spokesman for the duo .

Together ,  they would organize major integrated track and feel meets, the PAn-Africa games ,  the MLK Jr. , iInternational Freedom Games ,  even extending the integrated track idea to the cold war with the first USSR-USA itrack meet in 1974.  Buehler and Walker would both become important Olympic track and field  coaches, serving several  US Olympic teams.  

And remarkably in the early 70's when women becane the new civil rights issue , Beuhler was at the forefront  again, bringing  the first woman runner  onto the Duke track team and then whenTitle IX  was enacted mandating equal  acess to women athletes, Buehler voluntarily gave all his track  scholarships to the  women's program  at Duke,  so it could get off to a strong start. 

His friend coach Walker, attributes Buehler's remarkable  record to his inherent humility And it makes sense.  If you're not looking for  glory for yourself , its easier to do right by others. ... 

All in all, Buehler strikes me as the Atticus Finch of college athletics-- a humble and principled man , willing  to take on the challenges of his day and do the right thing. 

The film  tells much of this well , ably directed by one of Buehler's former students,  Amy Unell, who went on become a producer  at NBC an decided in 2010 make this doc in tribute to the Duke coach on his 80th birthday.  And the film is organized as a glowing tribute, but in this case m it doesn't matter.  It is such a great story, you easy  forgive its sentimentality  and come away grateful for having learned about this remarkable man.
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I do think a stronger  film could have been made , focusing more on his integration efforts , and trimming some  of the material in the second  half of the film. But these are quibbles.

The film can be rented on itunes and is streaming on Netflix.

Watch this film. You'll be glad you did.

Kind Hearted Woman preview

I'm taking the unusual  step of reviewing a Frontline film I worked on with David Sutherland (The Farmer's Wife, Country Boys).


                           Kind Hearted Woman
Trailer

His latest  epic is a searing portrait of a Native woman, Robin Charboneau, a 32-year-old divorced single mother and Oglala Sioux woman living on North Dakota’s Spirit Lake Reservation.  Sutherland follows Robin over three years as she struggles to conquer her alcohol addiction ,  raise her two children, further her education, and heal herself from the wounds of sexual abuse she suffered as a child.   

Robin’s battles in tribal court with her ex-husband for custody of the children, even after he is convicted of abusive sexual contact with his daughter, illuminates how serious this problem is on the reservation. Her quest to heal her family, find a man worthy of her love, build a career, and fulfill her goal of returning to her reservation to help prevent the abuse of women and children, takes her on an intimate and inspiring journey full of heartbreak, discovery, and redemption.

David has just completed  a 2 year edit and a meticulous post-production process on the 5 hour  series which will air as a presentation  of Frontline and Independent  Lens on PBS April  1 and 2. 

I worked with David, supervising his efforts on The Farmers Wife  and Country Boys, to which I made  some serious structural contributions, but on Kind Hearted Woman, David was at the top of his game and didn't need much of my help, so I can sing his praises without singing my own. 

I think viewers will find the film  very dramatic , involving and yet still troubling , due to its difficult subject matter.  David is a very accomplished storyteller and filmmaker, and his level of commitment to his films is unprecedented in my experience:

Here's a video piece about  David's filmmaking

I hope you take to opportunity to screen the film.  It will also be available online at Frontline.org. And I would be happy to publish your comments, on the film  here on this blog.  Send your comments  to me at jmsul68@gmail.com

Here are links to a couple of interesting articles about the film.

From IDA:  http://www.documentary.org/magazine/reservation-blues-kind-hearted-woman-paints-hardscrabble-portrait

And from  NY Times

Also, Frontline reporter Sarah Childress has done substantial reporting on the controversies  about tribal justice and child protection on the Spirit Lake Reservation, Check out her posts at Frontline

Hope to hear from you with your reviews of Kind Hearted Woman.

PBS 2013 Online Film Festival

I recently scanned  through the PBS 2013 Online Film Festival  of short  films  looking  for some documentaries to inspire me , but finding few gems.

Link to online festival

Most all the films  had no dramtic arc to them at all, but were merely descriptions of situations, like a summer camp for Indian kids, or portraits , one of a gay dad  who complains about his prolems with his ex-wire over who will care for their kids.

I don't know if there's something about the short format that automatically eliminates narrative development and drive , or if something has  has happened to today's filmmaker.  but there  were very few strong plots in any of the dozen films I screened

I did discover two well-crafted  films I  can recommend you watch:

The first, titled "Still" is a portrait of  72 year old  underwater photographer Carlos Eyles. It is beautifully shot by cinemaphotographer Tom Lyons. Some of his scenes of  Eyles swimming with turtles  and and dolphins are simply mesmerizing and the film with Eyles narrating is well put  together by a quartet  of producers -- Michael  Bath, Jose Tadeu Bijos, Pasqual Gutierre  and Ruby Stocking.

The other film I reccomend  is called  "Noc Na Tenecku", ( Night at the Dance) a short documentary about one of the last Czech dance halls in Texas.  Set in the tiny central Texas berg of Seaton, population 40, (it's located about halfway between San Antonio and Dallas), the film profiles Alice Sefcik Sulak,  the dance hall owner and  some old timers who still enjoy the dances at the Sefcik Dance Hall,  established in 1923.

There are a bunch of poignant moments sprinkled throughout the film -- a couple describes  how they danced  at the hall as teenagers  and then met there again after both were widowed;  a woman shows us  her her gold dancing shoes, but confesses she is sometime a wallflower at the dances;  another elderly woman  takes us to her husband's  gravestone near the dance hall to tell us she regerts not being able to dance the polka with Arthur any more,  and in the the film's final scene , Alice, the arthritic owner of the dance hall walks slow;y across  the now empty darkened dance floor,  slips a dollar bill in the jukebox and sings along with the song she has selected ,  singing perhaps to her now departed husband or maybe some never forgotten beau:

                                Henry, you have left me
                                Although you'll never leave my mind
                                I try and try to forget the night
                                You promised to be my sweetheart
                                 Now you have left me memories
                                 Although we are apart
                                 Never forget that you will regret
                                The promise you broke , sweetheart.

The film is artfully directed by Annie Silverstein, a young  Austin filmmaker.  From the looks of this film, she has a bright future.

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