The Rooftop Films 2008 Summer Series

Presented in partnership with: ASCAP Employees For Relief Fund, Historic Harlem Parks, Zeitgeist Films, the Central Park Conservancy, ASCAP and imagenation.

Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin and Carl Deal | New Orleans | 1:37:00)

Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott had just gotten a video camera a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit their neighborhood, New Orleans' 9th Ward. Trouble the Water, directed by Rooftop's neighbors and friends Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, includes Kim and Scott's astonishing footage documenting the experience. With overwhelming compassion and honesty, it tells the story of so many people in America today—those whose lives were ruined (or lost) to Katrina, and those across the country who are being left behind by an uncaring government.

Trouble the Water was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

When the rains come and the water begins to rise, Kim points her camera at the wind-lashed streets while her off-camera monologue mixes prayers and bravado, fear, resignation and hope. The flooding forces Kim and Scott into their attic of their trailer house, along with neighbors and children they rescue. When desperate people call 911 for help, they are simply told that no rescue teams are coming until the flooding recedes, leaving thousands to die. The toll would have been even higher if it weren't for the heroism of people like Kim and Scott's neighbor, a drug dealer named Larry Simms, who swims from house to house with a large punching bag, floating women and children to safety.

In jarring contrast, the local Navy base, which is located on the highest ground in the neighborhood, is running emergency generators for power, and, because of government cutbacks, had around 500 empty apartments, offers no help at all. When Scott and others approach the base, they are greeted with automatic weapons and told to leave. "What good is it to have a military if they can't serve us," Scott says ruefully. After the storm, when National Guardsmen show up to help rebuild New Orleans, one of the locals earnestly says to them, "I hope you don't have to go back to Iraq because that ain't our war. Our war is here."

Trouble the Water follows Kim and Scott for over a year as they try to rebuild their lives and their city. They battle FEMA for their pitifully small relief assistance checks, struggle to start a new life in a new city, and are still looked-down upon by the very authorities meant to serve them. Rooftop alum PJ Raval shot the post-hurricane footage, and he has done a brilliant job showing the destruction of the city without fetishizing the ruins, as so many films do. His intelligent cinematography highlights the heartfelt compassion the filmmakers feel for their subjects, creating a perfect balance between Kim's footage and the "professional" footage shot later. Indeed, what makes Trouble the Water such a significant film is the way Deal, Lessin and editor T. Woody Richman collect and arrange the dramatic parallels and contradictions, allowing them to focus a grand socio-political story through the lens of a tragic personal narrative.

The emotional climax of the film comes directly from Kim's talents and spirit, as she belts out a song about her life directly at the camera. She has a dynamic gift for rhythm and rhyme, and the insightful and intimate lyrics that lay her emotions bare create one of the most breathtaking pieces of music ever captured in film.

Of all the excellent Katrina documentaries and narratives, none so perfectly encapsulates the human tragedy in New Orleans and across the country as Trouble the Water.

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See Trouble the Water again, and tell your friends to go see it, at The IFC Center, starting August 22.