Freep Film Festival | Shorts Program III: True Stories
September 24 2021 | 4:00pm to 5:00pm
This program pairs two Motor City-made films that sidestep a purist documentary approach, instead employing narrative devices to tell true Detroit stories. The movies will be followed by a discussion about using methods traditionally associated with fiction to seek greater truths through cinema. A Q&A will follow the films.
1) ‘One Sweet Night’
Description: On a hot summer night in 1920s Detroit, African-American couple Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife Gladys are spending their second night in a new home they have purchased on an all-white street. “One Sweet Night” reveals the internal tension of the situation as they face racial violence while trapped inside a house that is their only protection.
Year: 2019
Runtime: 18 minutes
Director: Daniel Pfeffer
Writer: Andrew Colom
Producers: David Alade, Tinisha Brugnone, Andrew Colom
Cinematographer: Jeremy Brockman
Editor: Lily Kleinman
2) ‘Right On’
Description: Set in Detroit during 1968, an aspiring writer looks to change the narrative of the ’67 rebellion with his words. Everything is going according to plan until he and his family hear on the radio that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been shot.
Year: 2019
Runtime: 13 minutes
Director: Zachary Cunningham
Editor: Zachary Cunningham
Cinematographer: Jeremy Brockman
Composer: Matthew Crouch
Producers: Eden Sabolboro, Zachary Cunningham