The Roll Red Roll Discussion Guide includes a director's statement, helpful information about addressing consent and sexual assault, prompts for discussion and a list of action steps and resources. This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection, designed for people who want to use Roll Red Roll to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues and communities. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are right, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

Download the discussion guide for Roll Red Roll (PDF).

Tobia, Jacob. Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019.

From the moment a doctor in Raleigh, North Carolina, put “male” on Jacob Tobia’s birth certificate, everything went wrong. Alongside “male” came many other, far less neutral words: words that carried expectations about who Jacob was and who Jacob should be, words like “masculine” and “aggressive” and “cargo shorts” and “SPORTS!” Naturally sensitive, playful, creative, and glitter-obsessed, as a child Jacob was given the label “sissy.” In the two decades that followed, “sissy” joined forces with “gay,” “trans,” “nonbinary,” and “too-queer-to-function” to become a source of pride and, today, a rallying cry for a much-needed gender revolution. Through revisiting their childhood and calling out the stereotypes that each of us have faced, Jacob invites us to rethink what we know about gender and offers a bold blueprint for a healed world–one free from gender-based trauma and bursting with trans-inclusive feminism.

Boylan, Jennifer Finney.She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders.Broadway Books, 2013.

When she changed genders, she changed the world. It was the groundbreaking publication of She’s Not There in 2003 that jump-started the transgender revolution. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Boylan—a cast member on I Am Cait; an advisor to the television series Transparent, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times—explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of love and family.

Immerwahr, Daniel. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.

Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Times Books, 2007.

"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the latest, though perhaps not the last, example of the dangers inherent in these operations. In Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer tells the stories of the audacious politicians, spies, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers. He also shows that the U.S. government has often pursued these operations without understanding the countries involved; as a result, many of them have had disastrous long-term consequences.

Kinzer, Stephen.The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire. Henry Holt & Co., 2017.

How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat—until the cycle begins again. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to intervene in a foreign country. Revealing a piece of forgotten history, Stephen Kinzer transports us to the dawn of the twentieth century, when the United States first found itself with the chance to dominate faraway lands. That prospect thrilled some Americans. It horrified others. Their debate gripped the nation.

Gosset, Reina, and Eric A. Stanley, eds.Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility (Critical Anthologies in Art and Culture).MIT Press, 2017.

The increasing representation of trans identity throughout art and popular culture in recent years has been nothing if not paradoxical. Trans visibility is touted as a sign of a liberal society, but it has coincided with a political moment marked both by heightened violence against trans people (especially trans women of color) and by the suppression of trans rights under civil law. Trap Door grapples with these contradictions. The essays, conversations, and dossiers gathered here delve into themes as wide-ranging yet interconnected as beauty, performativity, activism, and police brutality. Collectively, they attest to how trans people are frequently offered "doors"—entrances to visibility and recognition—that are actually "traps," accommodating trans bodies and communities only insofar as they cooperate with dominant norms.

Karnow, Stanley.In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. Ballentine Books, 2016.

Stanley Karnow won the Pulitzer Prize for this account of America’s imperial experience in the Philippines. In a swiftly paced, brilliantly vivid narrative, Karnow focuses on the relationship that has existed between the two nations since the United States acquired the country from Spain in 1898, examining how we have sought to remake the Philippines “in our image,” an experiment marked from the outset by blundering, ignorance, and mutual misunderstanding.

Foster, John Bellamy.Naked Imperialism: the U.S. Pursuit of Global Dominance. Monthly Review Press, 2006.

During the Cold War years, mainstream commentators were quick to dismiss the idea that the United States was an imperialist power. Even when U.S. interventions led to the overthrow of popular governments, as in Iran, Guatemala, or the Congo, or wholesale war, as in Vietnam, this fiction remained intact. During the 1990s and especially since September 11, 2001, however, it has crumbled. Today, the need for American empire is openly proclaimed and defended by mainstream analysts and commentators. John Bellamy Foster’s Naked Imperialismexamines this important transformation in U.S. global policy and ideology, showing the political and economic roots of the new militarism and its consequences both in the global and local context.

Talusan, Grace. The Body Papers: A Memoir. Restless Books, 2019.

Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather’s nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family’s legal status in the country has always hung by a thread—for a time, they were “illegal.” Family, she’s told, must be put first.

Velasco Shaw, Angel and Luis. H. Francia.Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream 1899-1999. NYU Press, 2002.

U.S. intervention in the Philippines began with the little-known 1899 Philippine-American War. Using the war as its departure point in analyzing U.S.—Philippine relations, Vestiges of War retrieves this willfully forgotten event and places it where it properly belongs—as the catalyst that led to increasing U.S. interventionism and expansionism in the Asia Pacific region. This seminal, multidisciplinary anthology examines the official American nationalist story of "benevolent assimilation" and fraternal tutelage in its half century of colonial occupation of the Philippines.

Mendoza, S. Lily and Strobel, Leny Mendoza.Back from the Crocodile's Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory. Center for Babaylan Studies, 2013.

Back from the Crocodile’s Belly is a celebration of the beauty, richness, and diversity of indigenous ways of being as revealed in the critical studies and creative performances of living native traditions in the Philippines and in the United States diaspora. Through the use of primary and secondary research, the re-reading of historical and cultural archives, and the articulation of silenced stories, the book seeks to open up space for an alternative discourse on indigenous knowledge that does not merely reproduce progressivist and social evolutionary paradigms that invariably position the Indigenous Subject as “primitive,” “barbaric,” and nothing more than a “quaint relic of the past.”

Benedicto, Bobby.Under Bright Lights: Gay Manila and the Global Scene. University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Bobby Benedicto draws on ethnographic research and employs affective, first-person storytelling techniques to capture the visceral experience of Manila, painting a remarkably counterintuitive portrait of gay spaces in postcolonial cities. He argues that Filipino gay men’s pursuit of an elusive global gay modernity sustains the very class, gender, and racial hierarchies that structure urban life in the Philippines.

Johnson, Mark. Beauty and Power: Transgendering and Cultural Transformation in the Southern Philippines. London, UK: Berg Publishers, 1997.

This compelling study of gender and sexual diversity in the Southern Philippines addresses general questions about the relationship between the making of gender and sexualities, the politics of national and ethnic identities and processes of cultural transformation in a world of contract labourers and transnational consumers.

Manalansan, Martin F.Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Duke University Press, 2003.

A vivid ethnography of the global and transnational dimensions of gay identity as lived by Filipino immigrants in New York City, Global Divas challenges beliefs about the progressive development of a gay world and the eventual assimilation of all queer folks into gay modernity. Insisting that gay identity is not teleological but fraught with fissures, Martin Manalansan IV describes how Filipino gay immigrants, like many queers of color, are creating alternative paths to queer modernity and citizenship.

In December of 2014, I was fortunate enough to be invited by film auteur and scholar Nick Deocampo to travel to Manila to screen my previous two documentary features (Trinidad and BeforeYou Know It) for the QC Pink LGBTQ+ Film Festival. Having only visited my parents’ homeland as a child, I was excited to return to the Philippines and to forge my own connections to the country and its local queer communities. When I arrived, I discovered a country struck with grief, outraged over the death of Jennifer Laude, a trans woman from Olongapo who was found murdered in a motel room. A U.S. marine was the leading suspect, but police authorities were unable to detain him, as he was protected by a Visiting Forces Agreement that gives the U.S. enormous latitude with cases concerning military personnel. While serving on a panel about LGBTQ rights at the festival, I met Attorney Virginia Suarez who was representing the Laude family. She told us about the case and shared a clip of Jennifer’s mother, “Nanay” (tagalog for “mother”), who spoke with raw passion, demanding justice for the death of her child. During the panel, someone suggested that a documentary about Jennifer needed to be made, and all eyes turned to me.

For years I’ve made work recognized in LGBTQ film circles, and somewhere along the way people started overlooking my Filipino heritage. Being both queer and Filipino-American shapes who I am and how I experience the world, and it’s important to me to honor my intersectionality by presenting stories from both communities. I’ve always wanted to make a film set in the Philippines, and having the opportunity to tell the story of Jennifer Laude and those who worked tirelessly to seek justice for her death not only spoke to me as a queer person of color, but also as a Filipino-American. This film integrates all aspects of my identity and I’m extremely thankful for being given this opportunity to tell an important story for so many people, including myself.

Inspired by my first encounters with Nanay and attorney Virgie Suarez, I initially intended just to follow them for my documentary. I was riveted by Nanay when she spoke of her daughter and about seeking justice for her death, and Virgie impressed me with her sharp legal skills, which matched her passion for cultural and policy change. However, after becoming aware of investigative reporter Meredith Talusan, it became clear to me that following Meredith would parallel my own investigative journey. Meredith would not only be able to ask the larger questions, but she’d be able to view the unfolding events from a unique perspective--having been born in the Philippines yet currently living in the U.S., and also being transgender. Meredith would be the perfect narrator to contextualize the cultural differences between the Philippines and the U.S. and to pinpoint the relevance and historical importance of the unfolding events.

Call Her Ganda is a protest against the extreme violence and discrimination that trans women face around the globe. It is a tribute to the 3.4 million Filipinos living in the U.S. and diaspora. And, it is a lesson for a global audience largely ignorant of the legacy of U.S. imperialism in my country of origin. As a Filipino American growing up in the U.S., where my history and identity have remained largely invisible, I am well aware of the devastating lack of knowledge about my homeland and its colonization. Relegated to the footnotes and margins of the history books, the Philippines has been unduly overlooked and vastly misunderstood. In making this film, I seek to educate the wider public, while also furthering my own knowledge of my cultural heritage.

— PJ Raval, Director, Call Her Ganda

Cinema, like theater, can heighten our belief or make us believe the unbelievable. It can also disrupt and deconstruct our belief. Without condescension we hope to show that what is crass, campy, or even profane in the eyes of one group is sacred and full of communal significance in the eyes of another. We consider this project a continuation of the cinematic exploration of the links between class, commerce and American ritual that is central to our work. In an era when fundamentalism in both faith and politics rules the national stage, we hope to present a drama that explores the complex nature of belief and the fluid nature of faith but also provides personal windows into the issues and problems facing America as a whole.

When you witness an injustice, remaining silent or acting as a bystander is an active choice that is an impediment to justice. Speaking out and taking action are the counterpoints. The modern Civil Rights Movement would not have had the impact it did without thousands of individuals who spoke out and acted nonviolently to gain equal treatment under the law. More recently, the #MeToo movement’s power stems from individuals choosing to name and hold accountable those who perpetrate sexual harassment and violence. In both examples, the key factor in overcoming oppression and exploitation is breaking silence in the face of injustice.

In this lesson students will have the opportunity to examine the consequences of remaining silent specifically in relation to sexual violence and rape. Classrooms will watch curated segments from the acclaimed documentary Roll Red Roll, analyze in small groups a variety of perspectives involved in the case and identify moments when silence could have been broken. Students will then look at individuals who did intervene as model upstanders and reflect by writing proactive and prosocial steps they can each take to prevent, intervene, inform others and work toward ending sexual violence and rape culture.

Important Note to Educators

Roll Red Roll is a film about a sexual assault that occurred and can be difficult to watch and talk about, regardless of whether you or someone you know has been affected by violence. The film and lesson also include explicit language. Bringing these elements into a classroom conversation and sharing and processing this information requires a strong culture of respect and trust.

To prepare yourself and your students for this lesson:

● Read through the Discussion Guide for Roll Red Roll and consider integrating the Key Themes for Discussion and the related questions from the discussion guide into this POV lesson.

● Watch all the film clips suggested for this lesson prior to screening them in your classroom.

● Review the Resources section of this lesson and familiarize yourself with the recommended organizations and materials from the Discussion Guide for Roll Red Roll.

● Refer to and/or print and distribute the Important Terminology sheet at the end of this lesson and use it as a reference for yourself and your students. These terms and definitions can provide language for the class to use when discussing the film and the topics covered.

This lesson also offers two days of engagement, depending upon the grade level and preparedness of your students.

➔ Lesson: Students will view Clips 1 through 3, discuss a variety of perspectives and complete a reflective writing exercise.

➔ Extended Learning: Students will view Clips 4 and 5, discuss the choice of complicity by many peers and critically examine how technology added to the violation by bringing the crime to the “public square” of social media. If incorporating day two film segments, please pay particular attention to who is in your classroom.

OVERVIEW

“Archaeology is the study of past cultures through the material (physical) remains people left behind.” (archaeological.org) Artifacts uncovered by archaeologists inform the narratives of history studied by every student in today’s schools. This lesson invites students to wonder about how scientists travel the path from a random item left behind to conclusions about how people lived or what they believed. Using the film 306 Hollywood as a model, students will be asked to create “catalogs” of “artifacts” representing their own lives or communities.

OBJECTIVES

In this lesson, students will:

• Explore how archaeologists make inferences about societies from the artifacts left behind
• Examine what the “artifacts” in our own homes say about our current society
• Create a representation of self by creating a catalog of personal artifacts

GRADE LEVELS: 10-12

SUBJECT AREAS

Archaeology

Art

History

Research Skills

U.S. History (post-WWII)

English/Language Arts

MATERIALS:

Film clips from 306 Hollywood and a way to screen them

[Optional]: Screen grabs of the catalogs (for use in class only)

ESTIMATED TIME NEEDED:

2 full class periods with homework in between

We are siblings who for years have aspired to make feature documentaries that reveal the myths and magic of everyday life. Towards this end, we set off to create 306 Hollywood, using humor, fantasy, and drama to transform the story of an old lady into an epic tale of what remains after life ends.

Before our grandmother Annette died, our intention was to make a candid and humorous film from the perspective of old age (“Getting old isn’t for sissies!” she always said). This project was based on 10 years of interviews we filmed with her. However, when we returned to Annette’s house after her funeral, we were faced with the grim reality of having to sell the house and throw out all of her possessions. That is when another, more complex, story emerged.

It is easy to take a house for granted. Domestic space is often overlooked, underestimated and left out of the mainstream record. Yet here was a space where our family had lived for 70 years. The thousands of objects that remained revealed layers of history—personal, social, and cultural. “A house is a universe,” physicist Alan Lightman declares in one interview. We believe this wholeheartedly, that our sense of time, identity and relationships are all connected to the home.

We are interested in rethinking the documentary form and are inspired by fairy tales, myths and magical realism. Fairy tales have been used for thousands of years to articulate our deepest fears and ease life transitions. We also believe that real life stories should be as entertaining and accessible as narrative films. Our cinematic language springs from this tradition and uses a technique called “normalized magic” where the day-to-day is collapsed with the wondrous. 306 Hollywood uses magical interventions to open the story to greater possibilities, to express the film’s themes of the visceral experience of grief and the psychological nature of memory, and to plumb the psychological truths that escape our everyday language.

We aim to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Our background is in the visual arts and we apply this sensibility to every one of our images. We crafted dozens of installations from Annette’s possessions; built a scale model of the house; turned our grandfather’s office into a mythical kingdom; and the last scene shows the entire house covered in the clothing of everyone who lived at 306 Hollywood.

— Elan and Jonathan Bogarín

POV films showcase documentary film as an art form and can also be used to present information, get people interested in taking action on an issue, provide opportunities for people from different groups or perspectives to exchange views and create space for reflection. Refer to the event planning tips below to help you create a meaningful, high-impact event.

Step 1:
Determine your objectives.

POV film screenings can be tailored to your organization’s specific goals. Ask yourself:

Have I defined my goals?

Set realistic objectives with your partners by thinking about some basic questions: What do you want to happen as a result of your event? Who is your target audience? Keep in mind that some goals are easier to accomplish than others. For example, expanding a person’s knowledge is easier than changing his or her beliefs and behaviors. Establishing clear objectives will make it easier to decide how to structure the event (whether as a single meeting or an ongoing project, for example), target publicity and evaluate results.

Does the way I am planning to structure the event fit my objectives?
Do you need an outside facilitator, translator or sign language interpreter? If your objective is to share information, are there local experts on the topic who should participate in a panel discussion? How large an audience do you want? Large groups are appropriate for information exchanges, while small groups allow for more intensive dialogue.

Have I arranged to involve all stakeholders?
Think about contacting other community organizations, public officials or experts who might be good speakers. If your group is planning to take action that will affect people other than those present, it is especially important to give voice to those not in the room and ensure that people are allowed to speak for themselves. Ask stakeholders to identify their objectives and determine to what extent they can be involved.

Step 2:
Decide on a date, time and location.

Start planning your event at least one month in advance of the scheduled screening to ensure timely delivery of the film and adequate time for event promotion.

Your location should:

Be reserved for the duration of the film, if not longer
Be large enough to accommodate all attendees
Have proper A/V equipment: POV provides a copy of the film on DVD.

Possible event goals include:

Raising awareness of important issues that affect your community and the world
Encouraging dialogue around these issues forming new organizational alliances and partnerships
Making new contacts with the media and becoming a resource to be consulted
Recruiting new members through increased visibility
Enhancing your educational curriculum for students, staff and/or volunteers
Studying the art of documentary

Please note that goals may not include specific calls to action around legislation unless both sides are represented.

Step 3:
Sign up to host an event.

Join the POV Community Network:

1. Check your inbox for a link to confirm your email address. A member of our team will approve your registration within 1 business day.
2. Activate your account: Check your inbox for an activation link and temporary password. • Request: Once approved, log in to your account and click "My Events" to register a screening.

Let us know if you have trouble registering or change any of your event plans by contacting us at events@pov.org

Ask Yourself:

If the group is large, are there plans to break into smaller groups? Or should attendance be limited?

Is the event being held in a space where all participants will feel comfortable?

Is the space wheelchair accessible? Is it in a part of town that’s easy to reach by various kinds of transportation? If you are bringing together different constituencies, is the space in neutral territory? Does the physical configuration allow for the kind of discussion you hope to have?

Will the way that the room is set up help you meet your goals?

Is the room comfortable? Will everyone be able to see the screen easily and hear the film? If you intend to have a discussion, will people be able to see one another? Are there spaces appropriate for small breakout groups?

Have I scheduled time to plan for action?
Planning next steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even if the discussion has been difficult. Action steps are especially important for people who already have a good deal of experience talking about the issues on the table. For those who are new to the issues, just engaging in public discussion serves as an action step.

Cooper, Anderson and Gloria Vanderbilt.The Rainbow Comes and Goes.Harper, 2016.

Anderson Cooper was busy with his career as a journalist when his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, suffered her first serious illness at the age of ninety-one. After that experience, he decided to spend more quality time with her. This book follows a year-long conversation between mother and son discussing family history, personal tragedies and triumphs.

Heti, Sheila, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton.Women in Clothes.Blue Rider Press, 2014.

A conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities— famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives.

Knisley, Lucy.Displacement: A Travelogue.Fantagraphics Books, 2015.

Displacementis Lucy Knisley’s graphic memoir of her experiences traveling with her aging grandparents on a cruise. Knisley explores her frustrations and fears while taking care of her grandparents and coming to terms with their mortality. The graphic novel looks at her family history, using her grandfather’s WWII memoir as a guide.

Lightman, Alan.Screening Room: A Memoir of the South.Pantheon Books, 2015.

Alan Lightman's grandfather, M.A. Lightman, was the family's undisputed patriarch. It was his movie theater empire that catapulted the Lightmans, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant family, to prominence in the South; his triumphs both galvanized and paralyzed his descendants. In this evocative personal history, the author chronicles his return to Memphis and the stifling home he was so eager to flee forty years earlier. As aging uncles and aunts retell old stories, Alan finds himself reconsidering long-held beliefs about his larger-than-life grandfather and his quiet, inscrutable father.

Shapiro, Bill and Naomi Wax.What We Keep: 150 People Share the One Object that Brings Them Joy, Magic, and Meaning.Running Press Adult, 2018.

Best-selling author and former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine, Bill Shapiro shares the stories of 150 objects that are each deeply personal to their owners. The interviews range from renowned authors to everyday individuals. The stories are paired with photographs of the object and the interviewee.

Minding the Gap started as a series of interviews on a road trip and snowballed into a confrontational saga of everything I couldn’t make sense of as a child.

I was 8 years old when my single mother took a job in Rockford, Illinois, a crumbling factory city two hours west of Chicago. She remarried a physically and mentally abusive man, had a child with him and then remained with him for 17 years. Because of his explosive, often unpredictable violence, I perceived the world as lacking causality: you could do the right thing or the wrong thing, but either way things might not go well for you. After I started skateboarding at age 13, through many bruises, broken bones and hard-earned tricks, I gradually regained a sense of control over my pain. Most importantly, I found myself much happier with a group of outcasts in the streets than at home. We spent countless hours together, making our own version of a family.

In my late teens and early twenties, I was struck by loss. I’d permanently escaped my home to move to Chicago, and I wanted to know why so many of my peers were falling prey to drug addictions, jail sentences or worse. I was still filming skate videos for fun—driving solo around the country and couch-surfing with other skateboarding friends I’d met over the years. Eventually I began interviewing skateboarders: What does skateboarding feel like? Who do you love more, your mom or your dad? Who taught you the feeling of hate? These conversations often turned into impromptu therapy sessions, intimate spaces for catharsis and realizations.

I discovered a pattern of absent, distant and abusive father-figures—something that affected mental health, relationships and parenting styles. A little more than one year into the project, I returned to Rockford, where I sat with a charming, goofy 16-year-old named Keire in his mother’s attic and asked him about his father. He’d never talked about their relationship before and was fidgeting with the sleeves of his sweater. When he told me about his abusive father, I felt my chest tighten with anxiety. “Did you cry?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you?” he shot back. “I did cry,” I said. We sat in silence, neither of us daring to attempt a joke.

For the next four years, I returned to Rockford to continue following Keire, as well as the ad-hoc leader of the Rockford skateboarding community, a charismatic 23-year-old named Zack who was about to become a father himself. After partnering with Kartemquin Films, I wanted to explore the connected themes of skateboarding and violence in the home through a character-driven approach. I took on a more cinema vérité style, drawing inspiration from the films that resonated with me in my adolescence: Gummo, Waking Life, Kids, Slacker—stories that captivated me with their representations of growing up in a chaotic, uncertain world. I could relate to them, and through them I could also find hope.

As I began assembling rough cuts and holding feedback screenings, people were surprised at how close I was to the themes and community of the film. With their encouragement, I began participating in the film more. À la Sherman’s March, the cameraperson was cast as a character. But then everything changed when (spoiler alert) the mother of Zack’s child told me Zack had been battering her. The heart of the film, which had been exploring how skateboarders deal with masculinity and child abuse, suddenly became much more murky with immediate and personal ramifications; I was forced to become an active participant in the story, eventually interviewing my estranged mother and half-brother about my stepfather and revisiting old footage to find a way to tell my own story.

People are often surprised that I didn’t know Keire and only briefly knew Zack growing up but that we were still able to have candid and vulnerable moments with each other when I came back to Rockford. In the course of making the film, I realized that Zack, Keire and I were all harboring toxic experiences buried under the weight of years of societal and personal repression, and we all chose our own ways of dealing with that pressure. The film has given me a sense of clarity about myself and shown me that, while there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, some ways of coping aren’t sustainable.

What’s clear from doing this project is that violence and its sprawling web of effects are perpetuated in large part because these issues remain behind closed doors, both literally and figuratively. My hope is that the characters who open doors in Minding the Gap will inspire young people struggling with something similar—inspire them to see that they can survive their situations, live to tell their stories and create lives of causality for themselves.

— Bing Liu, Director

Minding the Gap is a coming of age film by Bing Liu. Starting in high school, Bing begins to make skate videos. What starts as a hobby ends up as a profound exploration of issues that is likely to resonate deeply with students.

The diverse group of participants in the film – Bing, Keire, Zack, and Nina – see and feel the often jarring challenges of life in a small, declining Rust Belt city. Collectively, they experience family violence, substance abuse, economic insecurity, racism, and teen pregnancy, along with the typical struggles of identity formation as teens become adults. To cope, they skate — regulating the speed at which they move through life, attacking obstacles and flipping over platforms, sometimes unsuccessfully. The risks they take are sometimes rewarded and sometimes the source of pain. But they persevere.

Thompson, Neal.Kickflip Boys: A Memoir of Freedom, Rebellion, and the Chaos of Fatherhood. Ecco, 2018.

What makes a good father, and what makes one a failure? Does less-is-more parenting inspire independence and strength, or does it encourage defiance and trouble? Kickflip Boys is the story of a father’s struggle to understand his willful skateboarder sons, challengers of authority and convention, to accept his role as a vulnerable “skate dad,” and to confront his fears that the boys are destined for an unconventional and potentially fraught future.

Cumming, Alan.Not My Father's Son: A Memoir. Dey Street Books, 2014.

When television producers approached Alan Cumming to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show, he hoped to solve the mystery of his maternal grandfather's disappearance that had long cast a shadow over his family. But this was not the only mystery laid before Alan. Alan grew up in the grip of a man who held his family hostage, someone who meted out violence with a frightening ease, who waged a silent war with himself that sometimes spilled over onto everyone around him.

McClelland, Edward.Nothin' But Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland. Bloomsbury Press, 2013.

Nothin' but Blue Skies tells the story of how the country's industrial heartland grew, boomed, bottomed, and hopes to be reborn. Through a propulsive blend of storytelling and reportage, celebrated writer Edward McClelland delivers the rise, fall, and revival of the Rust Belt and its people.

Hooks, Bell.All About Love: New Visions.HarperCollins, 2000.

As bell hooks uses her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen to explore the question “What is love?” her answers strike at both the mind and heart. In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi.Between the World and Me.Penguin Random House, 2015.

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Novak, Brandon and Joe Frantz.Dreamseller: An Addiction Memoir.Citadel, 2009.

At seven, Brandon was a skateboard prodigy. By the time he was fourteen, he was living the dream. Discovered by skate legends Bucky Lasek and Tony Hawk. Touring the U.S. with the elite Powell-Peralta team. Signing autographs and appearing in films and magazines. Brandon had it all. Then he got hooked on heroin. Soon the up-and-coming star was living a down-and-out life in a garage, begging for change, and hustling to score his next fix. He stole from his family and friends. He pushed the fantasy that everything was okay, that he was going to rehab, getting help, and getting better. But it was all a lie. This is the story of an addict—a dreamseller who stopped believing the lies he was selling and started believing in himself.