“Hear Me” is a 50-minute film directed by Dave Simonds exploring how guns and violence have affected the lives of young people from the rural, westernmost region of Massachusetts.
“We're talking about street violence and homicide and things like that- So this is a demographic that may not normally be in dialog with the broader public, and I think the way that we as a public hear these narratives is often through the mainstream media with the headlines of a crime that was committed, or the images of cuffs and shackles and courtrooms, and we don't usually get a chance to actually understand how an individual might end up there, or why, or all the other things. So, I think in our film, the cast are the experts," Producer Jenny Herzog told WAMC. “I followed around outreach workers who were working with clientele in the community, and pitched, we're making a documentary film about local gun violence- Do you have a story you'd like to share? And there was actually a lot of interest. We had maybe like 20 young people who wanted to share their story, and we ended up choosing seven of those that we felt had a wide range of ages, experiences, and different types of stories that would ultimately be weaved together to create this film.”
Herzog says the film explores similarities between the narratives of the cast members through a public health lens.
“Things like families and generational trauma of families that have been impacted by mass incarceration, substance use issues, mental health, being segregated within the public school system – and ultimately, sort of pushed out of it – food insecurity, and then ultimately falling into the criminal justice system and getting involved in the streets because of the need to survive and not having that sense of belonging or stability at home,” she explained.
One metaphor shared in “Hear Me” sums up the larger story of how cycles of violence eat away at the safety and security of family.
“One of our cast member’s grandmother lived in the Westside of Pittsfield, and he described a room in her house that was called the white room, and the all the furniture was white- The carpet was white, the walls were white, and when you went in that room, you had to be like, super careful, don't spill anything," said Herzog. "And he makes a comment like, we in the hood, what is what is this even for? And then he talks about how she was kind of a foundational person in the family and she really held the family together- And when she passed, that whole family dynamic kind of fell apart. And he draws the metaphor of then people started going in the white room and making a mess of it, and it was no longer the white room that he remembered.”
Sunday’s screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A.
“We are introducing public health models that have been effective at reducing shootings and homicides in other cities," Herzog told WAMC. "So, we're basically going to be sharing those models with the public and talking about what it might look like to bring something like that to Berkshire County and Pittsfield specifically. We're also lucky to be joined by Peter Wagner, who's the executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, which is a actually a national think tank around criminal justice reform, and he's a local of Adams, so he'll be joining us along with Professor Ben Snyder from Williams College, who's a sociologist working on surveillance tactics and violence prevention, and then also Kamaar Taliaferro, who is the chair of the NAACP political action committee.”
