William Brent has played a pivotal role in cultivating interest and buzz for The Film Connection.
June 2004 | Evergreen Citizen
Building Community at the Movies
by Andrew Mulholland
During the early horrific moments of Sept. 11, William Brent was playing an Ultimate Frisbee game at a local stadium in Shanghai. It was night time in China, about 8:30 p.m., when a friend’s wife called on a cell phone. The Frisbee squad located the nearest TV and watched “the two towers collapse” late into the night.
Like all of us, the event changed William Brent’s view of the world. What he decided to do about it was return to Seattle within about a year’s time to help start The Film Connection, a nonprofit joint project among local filmmakers, activists and businesspeople to develop a national DVD lending library of independent films to encourage movie clubs.
The idea is to use movies as a starting point for discussion and breakthroughs in social justice.
It’s a terrific idea.
You can borrow hundreds of films at www.thefilmconnection.org to host a regular movie group. The films are carefully chosen to provide grist for discussion while still entertaining. You “borrow” online, wait for a mailed DVD, then ship it back when you are done screening the movie and talking it over. It’s all free of charge.
Brent, 38, has played a pivotal role in cultivating interest and buzz for The Film Connection. Pilot groups here in Washington and out east in Vermont and Maine spawned additional cohorts of movie watchers/debaters in 30 states. Brent, our Evergreen Citizen for June, is a board member for the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Network and retains his role as partner in a China-based film company. Plus, Brent is working on an ambitious “Talk to Us” project that is videotaping hundreds of people from around the world to offer 30 seconds of what they want to say to Americans.
Here are some “outtakes” from Evergreen Monthly’s sitdown with Brent.
EM: Why film clubs?
Brent: After Sept. 11, a bunch of us asked each other, what can we do? Getting together to talk about it seemed like the right thing. We talked about discussing relevant and timely books. But one major problem with book clubs is you have to find time to read the book. People don’t have the time. Watching a movie and discussing it can be done in one night.”
EM: What is the ultimate goal for The Film Connection?
Brent: We see ourselves as a national public library for independent films. It might be that actual public libraries can’t carry the hundreds of DVDs in our catalog. We can serve as their clearinghouse.
EM: Aren’t movies already a community or group activity of sorts?
Brent: We treat it as a community event because we watch movies with groups of people. But a theater might hold 100 people who watch a compelling movie and yet nobody talks about it, except maybe to a friend or two. Wouldn’t it be great if movies were a more shared experience after the film?
EM: Your online catalog lists many documentaries. Are Americans gravitating more to documentaries?
Brent: I definitely think there is a growing appetite for documentaries in the U.S. One reason is the product is better. People who make documentaries realize you can’t just do an expose, lead viewers into a dark hole and leave them there. The filmmakers are realizing there has to be something hopeful.
EM: What good movies have you seen lately?
Brent: I’m too busy to watch a lot of movies [he laughs and explains he has a two-year-old]. But here are some films I recommend and which we will be adding to our catalog as soon as possible: “Blue Vinyl,” “Born into Brothels,” “My Architect” and “The Fog of War.”
Andrew Mulholland is a regular contributor to Evergreen Monthly.
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