(light music) - [Jackie] This episode of Monograph is all about movie magic.

So I got to visit a special theater in Birmingham called Sidewalk Cinema.

The best movies have a little suspense though.

Before we learn more about Sidewalk, let's meet Hokes Bluff filmmaker, Bo McGuire.

- We are in Alabama near the Coosa River and near some foothills and I think that that landscape is important to my work.

You can find secret holes and hollers here.

There's so many hollers to go into.

There's hills to climb.

There's also the water to carry stuff away.

My name is Bo McGuire and I'm a poet and filmmaker from Gadsden, Alabama.

So right now we're in the "Slack Shack" on the corner of Slack and Newton, which is my grandmother's home, my father's mother's home who was a librarian, a children's librarian here in Gadsden.

That sort of ear about being a poet and being a storyteller really begins like laying on the floor, listening to my mother on the phone, talk to her mother and her sister.

That's the sort of like sense of language and the particular ways in which southern women voice things.

Probably is the base of my artistic practice.

And I realized that I could write good poems or that I had an ear that I probably had inherited from the women of my family.

And I realized I didn't wanna do anything else really except create I was an artist fortunately and unfortunately.

Dolly Parton is a big influence on me because when I realized that she was a poet and like sort of her history about of cultivating her imaginative sense and her creative sense out of the world she grew up in and the people she was surrounded by and putting that to lyrics, I realized that I could be a poet, that it wasn't this sort of like thing to be wrapped up in a book necessarily that like poetry was living.

When I finished school in New York for filmmaking, I didn't really wanna live in New York.

The three things that are really conducive to me being a productive, creative person, which is time, space, and quiet, are three things you spend most of your life fighting for in a place like New York.

I could see myself like getting a job as an assistant editor or like production design, but I knew all that stuff would take me away from my stories and from the people and the places that influenced my stories, which is here, so I moved home.

Moving back here was the only thing that made sense to me 'cause it connected me with the land and connected me with the people.

And I think I am really about trying to make films that have the people in them that they are for.

And I feel like a large part of the United States gets ignored by the media makers.

Southern tellers, Southern makers do it better.

I think that they have a particular way of seeing this world and this culture that we come from and the dominant story about creatives and successful people from the south a lot of the time and especially queer people from the south is about getting out of this place.

So I think it's really important to tell the stories about people returning here and about people staying here.

I think that's where their wisdom is.

Even if you leave this place carrying a sense of the goodness that's here with you and not only seeing it as a place to flee from.

Socks On Fire is my first feature film.

It's what I call a trans-generational docudrama.

And by that, I mean it does not operate under the normal rules of documentary filmmaking.

We use all the colors in the crayon box and make up a few of our own.

It's a love letter to Southern femininity, which I think saved myself in a lot of ways, but that love letter is couched in the battle between my family members as they fight over my grandmother's estate when she died without a will.

My other grandmother who didn't live here in this house, she lived in the house my uncle John lives in now.

We always said our goal was to have Sunday school teachers and drag queens in the same room.

That's the lesson of Dolly Parton, uniting people and under the force of love.

It's been really wonderful.

It's been a particular joy to experience this film with queer southern audiences.

I've heard, not as a point of bragging, but I've heard a lot of people say, I had never seen myself in a film before and now I can see myself here.

So that means a lot 'cause that was the work we set out to do was to create something different, to really show the South as a place of queerness.

Queer individuals reclaiming southern landscapes and southern iconography for themselves and to say queerness has always existed here and isn't it a beautiful thing and doesn't it link up exactly with the wild and wonderful contradictory South.

- Movies are more fun with friends, don't you agree?

I said hi to my pals then had a chance to sit down with one of Sidewalk's leading ladies, Rachel Morgan, hello Rachel.

- Hello, how are you?

- Good, good, good, good.

So tell me what is Sidewalk?

- Sidewalk is a cultural institution.

I mean it's also a movie theater.

It's a two screen cinema and it's a film festival as well.

- What's your role here?

- So my role is creative director.

I kind of came in actually originally as a volunteer.

I had moved back to Alabama via New York and just wanted to get involved with film and stay connected to the industry and so I jumped in and started screening for Sidewalk so that's kind of where my beginnings were was just as a volunteer.

And then when leadership changed, I came on board as a lead programmer and then that evolved into being creative director.

And I've been creative director for about 17 years.

Well this is my 17th festival and 18th year.

- So what are the like most fun parts of your job you think?

- I think the most fun part of my job is that programming a film festival program is cinema.

It's very much like making a mix tape.

So I'm like making a mix tape for the community and a lot of work goes into that, so it's really easy for me to say, it's just like throwing stuff together, so it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun.

That's probably the funnest part.

- What is unique about what Sidewalk has to offer?

- Yeah, to me, the film festival now is just this sort of like explosion of independent film over the course of a week really, but the majority of it over the weekend.

So it kind of feels like independent film is taking over downtown Birmingham for three days.

But the other thing I think that's cool about Sidewalk, we do it at the cinema, but we also do it at the festival, which is we try to bring experience to film so that it's not just about going to see the film itself, even though that's great, it's also about things that are connected to a screening, whether that's meeting a filmmaker, having a Q and A with the filmmaker after the film, or whether that's getting a little silly handout when you go into the film or a film that has a particular scene in it and maybe some spiders get dropped on your head.

Yeah, that's happened before.

So I mean, trying to sort of curate and cultivate audiences and special experiences like that is incredibly fun and also incredibly rewarding and again, a great deal of work goes into making those things happen, not just by me, but by teams of people.

- Speaking of people, how large is your team here at Sidewalk, and who works in the festival?

Like what does it take?

- I mean, it takes a village.

There's a ton of people and we have front of house staff that help us keep everything up and running and we have back of house staff who are helping to administrate everything.

And then of course those two teams kind of come together to make the cinema happen.

And so all in all, that's 20 some odd people, but it takes to run the cinema on what I'd just say a daily basis.

And the festival is the same people make the festival happen, but we also have a team of like 600 volunteers.

- Wow.

- So it's a lot of people to make a weekend happen for sure.

- And why do you think that type of screening is important?

Like indie cinema, why is that important?

- Well, I think indie cinema, I think cinema is important period and I think there has to be all different kinds of cinema.

So, just three nights ago I was at the AMC, so I do go to the Multiplex.

I love going to the movie theater, but I just think being able to go to different kinds of movie theaters are important and being able to go and see all kinds of films are important.

So not just the blockbusters, not just the Marvel films, but films that are independent and films that represent people who aren't normally represented in films.

And that's changed and gotten a lot better, but when Sidewalk started 25 years ago, it was really, really critical.

I mean, we're at a critical spot where there was only a certain type of person being represented in cinema and that had been going on for 100 years.

So, part of the point of independent cinema is to give a voice to people who aren't normally recognized in media.

- Thank you so much, the programming sounds amazing.

I can't wait to come back.

- Please do, thank you so much, I appreciate it.

- [Jackie] Next, let's check out another cinema in Bessemer, Alabama, the historic Lincoln Theatre.

- I've often describe Bessemer as like an arts desert.

I know we talk about food desert, but Bessemer is sort of an arts desert and I think if our young people were exposed to it more, it would create more dialogue.

People would be able to communicate better and have discussions as opposed to so much conflict.

Back in the heyday, when I was a young girl, downtown Bessemer and especially First Avenue was the black entertainment district.

It was just very vibrant.

There were businesses that were black-owned, everything from beauty shops to barber shops, pool rooms, bake shops, delis, everything you needed entertainment-wise and naturally the theater.

But as the industry's declined, it is like people sort of moved away and the businesses went down because people were not spending money, they didn't have money to spend.

I think the Lincoln closed sometime in the 1980s.

- My mother is a very, very, very special person and one of the things about her that was really unique growing up is that she read the newspaper cover to cover every single day.

That was something she always did.

One summer, she read about Town and Gown Theater and that they were doing like a summer drama program and I wasn't interested at the time, but she said I was gonna do it and so I did.

- And so we would get in the car and drive downtown to Children's Theater for him to rehearse his one line, have a pickle.

- After school every day, we'd come to Town and Gown and do these little workshops and play games and ultimately we'd put on a show.

- And it just stuck with him and from there, he has performed in movies.

He actually performed in Selma.

He portrayed Ambassador Andrew Young.

He has performed Othello at the Globe in London and he was actually in Moonlight, which won Best Picture.

- It always felt a shame to me that I had to go outside of Bessemer, outside of the immediate community in order to access the arts.

So when I was growing up, I used to go... My dad and I would go get our haircut at this one shop every weekend, every Saturday.

And the shop itself was next to this kind of weird looking building that was always in like some state of like disrepair.

At one point, you could look in the window and see that like there were all these things that were like shoved in there and that had been stored there, but it never occurred to me that it was anything other than just an old abandoned building.

And so he told me one day, he said, "Well, that used to be a theater."

I was like, "What you mean?"

He's like, "Well that was a movie theater.

That's where we used to go and see movies.

That was one of the only places that black people at the time could go to see movies."

The old movie reels were still there.

The old like signage, King Kong was still there.

The projector were there, the seats were there.

You could see the kind of architecture of what used to be a really important place.

- And he came home and said, "I think I want to buy that theater."

- And like, as soon as I said I wanted to do this, she was like, "Okay, let's figure it out."

So it was my idea, but she's like taking it and is like running with it and it's been amazing to see her spearhead this operation.

- He had the audacity to say to us once he had purchased it, I really want you guys to get busy and get this place restored.

- And what was amazing is that as I started to talk to more and more people in the community, everybody had some memory of the Lincoln, everybody.

I mean, people would say, "Oh, I went on my first date at the Lincoln.

I remember what it looked like.

I remember the movie that I saw."

- I remember coming there as a child and I've had people say, "Oh, I got my first kiss over in that corner right over there."

- In just talking about the space, it's brought people together in like a really, really beautiful way and it's given space I think for people to remember these important parts of their lives.

- Well the arts meant so much to him growing up and it's something that he wants to expose more young people to.

- So my vision for the Lincoln is that it will be a single screen cinema that will primarily focus on films by makers of color, films that sort of explore the black diaspora.

I also wanted to have a component of education.

Like I said earlier, it was difficult for me to find access to arts programming when I was young and I think that is so, so important.

I mean we obviously all know how little funding there is for arts in schools now and so I hope that the Lincoln can kind of help bridge that gap.

- Because we embarked upon this, I think it has spurred so much interest in the city.

There have been several people who've purchased buildings on the next block and so it's gonna have a domino effect.

I think it will rejuvenate the entire downtown area.

- I also see the theater as being a sort of gathering place for the community.

I feel like the connection between the elders and the young people has been severed in like a really kind of dangerous way.

And so for me, I feel like it also will be a community of people to get together and exchange information and exchange ideas and to exchange stories.

I just think that the entire community I think, I hope to create like an ecosystem of artists that'll sort of be birthed from this Lincoln project.

- Back at Sidewalk, Jessica Chriesman showed me more of the cinema facilities, including this bathroom inspired by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, perfect for selfies.

Then we sat down to learn about her role at the theater.

Jessica, so what do you do here at Sidewalk?

- So I am the director of education and outreach here, which means I am the main person who puts together our educational efforts, panels during the festival, workshops and classes throughout the year and our youth programming.

- So I'm familiar with the film festival, I'm less familiar with the other programs that happen here.

Can you tell us a little bit about those?

- Yeah, so as far as our educational programming, we have a ton of stuff throughout the year.

We have our book and film club, which meets monthly.

We'll read a book that's either a novel that's been adapted into a film or a book about some part of the filmmaking process.

It might be fashion, it might be a biography of a certain actor or director and then we watch a corresponding film that highlights the topics that were illustrated in the book and that's always really fun.

Just the other day we met and we had read The Talented Mr. Ripley and then we watched the 1995 film with Matt Damon.

We also do definitely technique in hands-on based classes.

We've had horror makeup classes here, we've had screenwriting classes here.

The actual offerings vary from year to year and who's available at what time, but we always have something going on for I like to say for filmmakers and for film lovers.

- So like how do you support local filmmakers or regional filmmakers outside of workshops?

- Yeah, so one program that we've had that we've been doing for years and years and years is our Sidewalk Scramble, which is a 48 hour film making competition where people pick their own team, their friends ahead of time, come to Sidewalk, get a genre, props that they have to use and a line that they have to include so we know everything was made in that 48 hours and they write the film, direct it, edit it all within that timeframe and then we come back a few weeks later and watch it all together in a cinema.

It's really interesting because they have a finished film that they didn't have 48 hours ago, so you really feel like you've accomplished something when you're participating in a scramble.

And Daniel Scheinert who just recently won many Oscars this past March, he credits the Sidewalk Scramble as being his jumpstart in the filmmaking because he did his first one, didn't win a prize and then that fueled him to learn more about filmmaking and to continue to compete and eventually win our Sidewalk Scrambles.

- Do you think there's something special about like filmmaking and the screenings that happen here at Sidewalk?

- Oh, for sure.

We have really great audiences who ask really intelligent questions about the topics at hand, especially if it's a documentary and the filmmaking process.

We really wanna be that third space for people.

Whether you're a filmmaker or you're just here 'cause you love the movies and you wanna fill out your punch card, we've had some people... We have a punch card that I believe it's 12 movies and you get the 13th free.

We have people who will turn in eight punch cards by the end of the year who've just been here so much.

We really want people to sit in our lounge areas, enjoy our bar and concessions even if they're not here to watch a movie.

We really just wanna be a space where people can feel at home and welcomed, but also a place where people can learn a little something through film.

- So it sounds like there's all sorts of screenings, there's all sorts of programs, especially for adults.

Are there things for maybe like younger folks to do here at Sidewalk?

- Yeah, for sure.

One thing that's youth-oriented that we do here is actually our youth board, which is a group of high school students who apply to be a part of the youth board from all across the area.

We've had kids from as far as Tuscaloosa be a part of the youth board.

They meet during the weekends to learn about filmmaking.

Some of the kids have been doing videos on their camera or on their phone and upload it to YouTube.

For years, some of them enjoy movies but have never participated in the backend.

They meet every other Saturday throughout the school year.

They learn the basics and then in the spring, they make their own short film, which gets screened here for family and friends in the spring.

- Thank you, this was so lovely.

- Thanks so much for having me and if you've got some time while you're here, I definitely recommend looking at some of our books on Film Craft.

- Our interview got me excited to check out Sidewalk's library of books on filmmaking.

For our last Monograph movie magic segment, meet one of Alabama's Academy Award winners, film editor Paul Rogers.

- I went to this really big office party and they gave me a work award for doing a good job.

So I told my son, he was like, "Cool."

That was an accident.

I accidentally won an Oscar.

Also I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm making it all up as I go.

My parents were super supportive.

My mom's an artist, she's a photographer, so she got it and my dad is a lawyer, which is just kind of another type of storyteller.

When I went to film school and I went through the process, being on set was just an excuse.

I just wanted to get through it as quickly as I could so I could start actually making what to me was making the film, which was editing.

I graduated and saw a posting for documentary editor at Alabama Public Television and I was like, there's no way I'll get a job.

I'm just outta college, I don't have any experience.

They hired me.

Mission-based work is intoxicating and powerful and exhilarating and energizing and the opposite of that is so depressing.

I was at work one day and I watched a film called Until the Quiet Comes by Kahlil Joseph.

And I watched it again and then I was like, oh god.

And I went home and told my wife Becky, I was like, "I think I have to quit my job and move to LA and find Kahlil."

This is the work that I want to be doing and that I always wanted to be doing, but then had kind of forgotten about narrative and experimental stuff that I was really attracted to.

So I found his editor, Luke Lynch, online.

He kind of said, "Look, if you come out here, we can give it a shot."

The deal that I had with my wife was six months, I'll see if I think I can make it out here.

Started working at the Eric Andre show as an intern and wasn't getting paid, did a bunch of other stuff, wasn't getting paid.

Eventually I started to get these little paid gigs, enough to just kind of almost pay my rent.

I called Becky and I was like, "I think I can make it, I think we can do it."

A coworker at APT, Justin Garr, moved out and so he invited me to Daniel Scheinert's birthday party.

The party was at a roller rink and I just showed up with Justin and Daniel was like, he didn't know me, he didn't invite me.

I had like forgotten my wallet so I didn't have any money so Daniel had to pay my way in and he rented my skates for me, but we skated around and I just kind of like fell in love with this group of friends that led to Turn Down for What.

That's how I started working with them.

You can be friends with the people you work with and you can do good work.

Something that lasts and put something good into the world and says something and makes people feel like they're included and makes people feel less alone, which sounds simple, and obvious, but it's surprising how little of that there really is.

Being a good editor also means being emotionally in tune with yourself in the world because that's kind of what you're doing.

You're like an emotional tuning fork for the film and everything comes through you.

So if you're not living life and having experiences and gaining knowledge of the world and people and the way that people interact, your tool gets dull and you start making weird decisions.

It's hard because I'm also obsessed with what I do.

So like I'll dream about it, I'll wake up and be in the shower and be like, "How can I fix that scene?"

So many of my ideas, the majority of them are bad and don't work.

I go through these stages on projects where I'm stoked, I'm excited, I'm confident.

Get the footage, start editing, start watching really.

Even more excited, I'm gonna kill it, it's gonna be great.

And then I start cutting and then I get to this point where I'm like, I'm a bad editor, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know why anyone has ever hired me.

I should quit and be a farmer.

And then I've realized that I just have to push through it, that if I just keep working, I'll accidentally do something interesting and then I can just like dig into that.

My process is like so different always because a lot of it's just keeping myself from getting bored and keeping myself from getting into these like repetitive patterns that can creatively kind of screw me up.

It's both learning to trust your instincts and having fun working against them.

And a lot of that also comes from working with other editors and being able to jump in and out of their projects and their timelines and seeing like, wow, they did it like that.

It all comes back to collaboration.

It doesn't matter how good you are technically.

If you have a good idea, it's gonna be good.

There's so many like pieces of work out there and even other mediums of art that are like not technically incredible, but the feeling behind it is amazing and that's the kind of stuff that I love doing.

At the company that I'm a part of now, Parallax, it's part of our like working philosophy.

The journey with the film and Everything Everywhere and all the awards and the Oscars is amazing, but I think I'm more like blown away by the fact that I am running a company with these people that changed my life, uploading this thing to the internet that I watched in Alabama in an office.

Luke, Graham Zeller and Kahlil Joseph, who's the director of Until the Quiet Comes, and that's like way cooler to me.

I love my work, the end.