Justin Joseph Hall: Halfway Home: A Father's Story, High on Crack Street: The Lost Lives of Lowell

Episode #34 - So many colons in this title! Justin Joseph Hall is an Emmy winning Editor of vérité documentary movies. He love sifting through mounts of footage to carve out the most interesting aspects of what he discovers in a short amount of time. Today he honors Downtown Community Television where he learned to cut their style of vérité footage by showing his favorite movies they’ve made.

For his short Justin brought an off-shoot of the Frontline episode Life on Parole. The short is called Halfway Home: A Father’s Story. It’s a movie that follows a father who was released from prison on parole for an entire year to see what life is like after prison. It’s an example of people with forgotten paths that are ignored by society with trials and tribulations that are often ignored by society. Justin speaks of the challenges of editing the movie and the challenges the main character faces in a complicated social justice system. The food served for the short was an apple and cake.

The feature Justin selected is an often forgotten movie he considers near perfect High on Crack Street: The Lost Lives of Lowell. The documentary that inspired the movie The Fighter was directed by Maryann DeLeo, Richard Farrell, and Jon Alpert. It covers the use of crack cocaine and the spiral it causes in one’s lives and the pull of addiction to the powerful drug. They served donuts, popcorn and domestic beer for this feature.

Learn more about Justin Joseph Hall and his work sign up for Fourwind Films’ newsletter. In the forecast to look forward to please check out host Justin Joseph Hall’s newest movie coming out a comedy special by Nimesh Patel called It’s Dark & Patel Is Hot.

Credits for podcast:

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Appointed Contributor - Justin Joseph Hall

Host - Laura Davi

Sound Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

The theme song of Season 5 is This Monster by Sun Nectar

Michael Fequiere: Kojo, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Episode #4 - Michael Fequiere, a Brooklyn based filmmaker and photographer presented this month. The first presentation was Kojo: A Short Documentary directed by Michael about the gifted 12-year-old jazz drummer Kojo Odu Roney. The feature presentation was 2008 Documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. Because the feature presentation was a Canadian production, the audience paired the film with shortbread cookies and Canadian beer.

Michael's short films have screened in numerous festivals both domestic (L.E.S. Film Festival, Big Apple Film Festival) and worldwide (Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival: Short Film Corner). To learn more about his work, visit his website at http://www.michaelfequiere.com/. 

Credits:

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Location & Production Company - Fourwind Films

Michael Fequiere - Director/Editor, photo by Daria Huxley

Michael Fequiere - Director/Editor, photo by Daria Huxley