{"id":18240,"date":"2019-03-25T09:22:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T17:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=18240"},"modified":"2023-09-06T16:41:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T23:41:22","slug":"tre-maison-dasan-director-denali-tiller-allows-children-to-speak-for-themselves","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/tre-maison-dasan-director-denali-tiller-allows-children-to-speak-for-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Children Own Their Stories in Tre Maison Dasan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denali Tiller has been an artist, a teacher, a world traveler, and was named one of 110 \u201cFilmmakers to Watch\u201d by Variety<\/em>, but Tre Maison Dasan<\/strong><\/em><\/a> happens to be her feature film debut, even if it is so assured and naturalistic that this is hard to believe. The film is told in collaboration with its young stars, the three titular boys, Tre, Maison, and the youngest, Dasan,\u00a0seen through their eyes as they come to terms with having a parent in prison as they come into their own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephen Farber in the Hollywood Reporter<\/em> wrote of Tre Maison Dasan<\/em>: “One of the startling statistics included in the film is that one of 14 children in the U.S. has had a parent incarcerated. The percentage is higher for black children, but this sad fact cuts across all ethnic groups. In fact, it is revealing that two of the three kids studied here come from a mixed-race heritage. And the film is honest enough to reveal that these parents were not incarcerated for minor offenses but for more violent crimes. There are no simple good guys or bad guys here; parents and children are all presented with clarity and compassion…in the end, what makes this film memorable is the emotion it generates.”<\/p>\n

The New Mexico-raised, Rhode Island-based Tiller spoke to us about her experiences making this film, of the bond she developed with these boys, of their experiences meeting each other and how they’re doing today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How did you first come to want to make this film, to tell these boys’ stories?<\/b><\/p>\n

In 2014, I met Joyce Dixson-Haskett, who spent 17 years in a Michigan prison. Her sons were 6 and 8 years old when she went to prison, and 23 and 25 when she came home. When she got out of prison, to find her oldest son was serving a life sentence, she started researching what had happened to her two little boys when she went away. Out of this research, she created a psychological model \u2014 Levels of Response to Traumatic Events (LORTE) <\/strong>\u2014 that outlines the cycle of grief and trauma that children go through when presented with the unique challenges and stigma of having a parent in prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

In conversations around criminal justice and prison reform, the perspective is most often of those that are in or have been in prison. But of the millions of people who have experienced incarceration, there are millions more who have borne the collateral trauma of that absence and the stigma that surrounds it. I wanted to hear from these families, and particularly children like Joyce\u2019s. <\/span><\/p>\n

I started going to visiting hours at John J. Moran Medium Security Prison, which is where I met Tre and Maison (and later, Dasan, once I got access to the women’s\u2019 facility). The stories evolved from there, and the film grew out of the relationships I built with these kids<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

I knew that if I, or anyone, were to share any story about children experiencing parental incarceration, it should come from them directly. So often we tell stories about children through a top-down perspective, informed by what we (adults) \u201cknow\u201d about their psychology and how their lives will unfold. There was a desperate need for a film that allowed the children to speak for themselves, and fully represented their experiences and the rippling effects of our vast incarceration system.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only way you could pull off this film is to ingratiate yourself with these kids and families, to gain their trust. How did you go about doing that? Can you talk about the process of becoming a part of their lives?Towards the end of production, Maison asked us, \u201cWhen this movie\u2019s finished, can you keep filming me?\u201d<\/pullquote><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Relationships. This was not a process of popping in and out of these kids\u2019 lives to tell a story about how their parents\u2019 incarceration is affecting them. I was there almost every week for 3 years, most of the time with a camera, but not always. We collected over 300 hours of footage, through which I never pressured intimate moments or scenarios based on the story I thought we were telling. I just spent time with them, listening and playing and documenting and collecting the stories from their lives as they were in front of us. <\/span><\/p>\n

Probably 80% of the footage we came away with is us just hanging out \u2014 playing with Legos, eating McDonald\u2019s, going to the beach, birthday parties, Thanksgivings, Christmases, school days. The intimate scenes you see in the film are just blips in the time we spent with Tre, Maison and Dasan, documenting their lives so when they would happen we were already there and already filming and the kids trusted us with these moments enough to capture them as they unfolded. <\/span><\/p>\n

They have described it to me as the camera just not being there after a while. It got to a point where Tre would ask us to come film with him, or to spend time together. Towards the end of production, Maison asked us, \u201cWhen this movie\u2019s finished, can you keep filming me?\u201d They became a part of my life, and I became a part of theirs, and I came with my camera, and that\u2019s how we were able to tell these stories together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their paths didn’t cross in the film itself but have any of the boys met each other since the film’s come out?<\/b><\/p>\n

In fact, Tre and Maison\u2019s fathers were both incarcerated at the same facility! They saw each other on Saturdays in passing but did not know each other beyond these interactions. Since the film has come out, the boys have become friends; Maison and Dasan are particularly close. One of the most moving moments for me was the first time they were all at a film festival screening at the same time (IFF Boston). They had all seen the film a couple of times already, but during this screening, they sat together and I watched them connect and look out for each other during the entire film. <\/span><\/p>\n

At one point, Dasan got emotional and Maison put his arm around him and wiped his tears. At another point during one of Tre\u2019s more difficult scenes, the two other boys kept looking over to make sure he was okay. <\/span><\/p>\n

It was so incredibly powerful to not only see them supporting each other through this experience that they alone shared throughout the process but also to imagine the impact on other children seeing the film who until that moment may have felt that they were alone. <\/span><\/p>\n

What did they think of the movie, of seeing themselves in it?<\/b><\/p>\n

I screened the film for each of them individually in the environments and with the people that felt most comfortable. The film has resonated with each of them differently, as did the process itself. I can tell you that Dasan has seen the film at least 25 times now and still insists on sitting in the theater every time there is a screening (and as long as there is popcorn). Maison and I are planning to film his father\u2019s release this summer and he wants to continue making films. He hopes this film can empower and encourage other children with parents in prison to know they are not alone. <\/span><\/p>\n

After our first public screening, Tre gave me a hug and said, it\u2019s a really good film, we did a good job. More than the film itself though, the process of making it is what I feel has had the biggest impact on them. It brought us together, it empowered them through their own truths, to know they were not alone, and has changed the course of all of our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you give us any other updates on them, on how they’re doing since filming stopped?<\/b><\/p>\n

They are all doing well right now! Maison and I have been seeing a lot of each other; he is presenting at a Youth Summit in San Francisco for children of incarcerated parents, and will be starting high school next year. He has been making a lot of art and animations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dasan is 9 now, he and his mom moved into their own apartment and she has been building her own curriculum around the film and educating teachers about how to support children of incarcerated parents in the classroom. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tre is living with a foster family and we are in touch very regularly. He is thinking a lot about his future, since he will be aging out of the foster care system next year. We filled out two job applications last week, and he\u2019s been inquiring about getting a driver\u2019s license. All three of them continue to do panels and engagements with the film with the audiences they care most about. <\/span><\/p>\n

Do you want to talk a little about what National Visiting Days are, in conjunction with your film’s premiere this month? <\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Visiting Day is one of the most important days of the week, month, or sometimes year for children and parents separated from their loved ones due to incarceration. \u00a0With the national broadcast premiere of Tre Maison Dasan<\/em> on PBS<\/span>, we want to help make that day happen for families across the country, strengthen bonds of family, and prompt a national reflection about the rippling effects of mass incarceration in America and the importance of parent-child relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n

PBS accessibility in many prisons and jails provides an opportunity to bring families together with their incarcerated loved ones through simultaneous watching of the film, and even further by capturing and sharing feelings, feedback, and impressions from both sides of the carceral divide at a national scale. \u00a0We hope the broadcast of the film can build a bridge across the separation between these families, and also help inform more humane programs and policy going forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

To start this bridge, we are encouraging community organizations, prisons, and jails across the country to host screenings during the broadcast streaming window (April 1-14), and have National Visiting Day screenings in 12 states planned so far!<\/span><\/p>\n