Pineland
At a traffic stop, distinguishing reality from fantasy becomes the difference between life and death. Pineland is a real-world story inviting critical inquiry about American state violence and our relationship to it.
Pineland is informed by my background as a civil-rights lawyer. A collection of short films—case studies—will tell this true story in different genres from a range of perspectives, in collaboration with the survivor of a traumatic event.
The first version, Pineland/Hollywood, is an 11-minute experimental piece employing fair-use clips from almost 200 Hollywood films to tell the story under a voice-over soundtrack of survivors' testimony from the actual court case. Two people testify about the same incident, but they seem to be inhabiting different worlds. The real testimony might as well have been scripted in Hollywood. Trauma is mined for entertainment, and we as viewers readily consume it. With original score and sound design by Quentin Chiappetta.
The story begins on the next page.
The Pineland concept was shortlisted for the 2019 & 2020 Tim Hetherington Trust Visionary Award
and is supported in part by a 2021 Speranza Foundation Lincoln City Fellowship.