BYOD: BRING YOUR OWN DOC – EPISODE 128: “FACING FEAR” AND “PRISON TERMINAL: THE LAST DAYS OF PRIVATE JACK HALL” – DOC SHORTS OSCAR NOMINEES

By Ondi Timoner | February 20, 2014

2014 Oscar Short Documentary Nominees Facing Fear and Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall are discussed with trailer footage and more from their filmmakers. Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall director Edgar Barens guides us through the prison hospice experience of Jack Hall, while Facing Fear director/producer Jason Cohen and film subject Matthew Boger share Matthew’s experience as a victim of a hate crime who has made an unlikely and heartfelt reconciliation with his attacker. It is a great look at two of the year’s best short documentaries on the world’s only all doc talk show, BYOD…

Watch new episodes of BYOD live each week on Tuesdays at noon on TheLip.TV, or tune in for the archived replay starting here on the following Thursday.

ABOUT BYOD:
BYOD is hosted by Ondi Timoner, director of “DIG!,” “JOIN US” and “WE LIVE IN PUBLIC,” and has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice. Each week the show explores a different documentary filmmaker or aspect of filmmaking, with special guests and a live Q&A– diving deep into creative process and the business realities of producing and distributing films. Ondi shares her insider views, opinions, and personal stories, welcoming audience participation. BYOD aims to entertain, inform, and elevate documentaries in general by bringing attention to films and film makers that deserve exposure.

GUEST BIO:
Facing Fear: Worlds collide when a former neo-Nazi skinhead and the gay victim of his hate crime attack meet by chance 25 years after the incident that dramatically shaped both of their lives. Together, they embark on a journey of forgiveness that challenges both to grapple with their beliefs and fears, eventually leading to an improbable collaboration…and friendship.

Jason Cohen has produced and directed all formats of film and television on projects that cover a broad range of topics over the past 20 years. Currently, Cohen is in production on a global film about love and forgiveness that has taken him around the world to highlight stories in Uganda, India, Haiti, Spain and Italy.

Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall: A moving cinema verité documentary that breaks through the walls of one of Americas oldest maximum security prisons to tell the story of the final months in the life of a terminally ill prisoner, Jack Hall and the hospice volunteers, they themselves prisoners, who care for him.

The film draws from footage shot over a six-month period behind the walls of the Iowa State Penitentiary and provides a fascinating and often poignant account of how the hospice experience can profoundly touch even the forsaken lives of the incarcerated.

Director Edgar Barens received his Bachelors degree and Masters of Fine Arts in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University. His body of work includes documentary films, experimental shorts, music videos and public service announcements, which have been screened at numerous film festivals, conferences, broadcast nationally and internationally, as well as distributed educationally. Barens’ work has received funding from the Illinois Arts Council, the Open Society Institute’s Project on Death in America and the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, the Independent Feature Project, the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the International Documentary Association, with additional support from Working Films and the Blue Mountain Center.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN:
00:01 Welcome to BYOD.
00:42 Introducing Edgar Barens, Matthew Boger and Jason Cohen.
01:25 PRISON TERMINAL, trailer.
02:55 Telling the story of Jack Hall.
06:32 PRISON TERMINAL, clip.
07:39 Filming with Jack in the hospice.
09:30 Shooting FACING FEAR.
10:43 FACING FEAR, clip.
12:00 The lasting weight of the hate crime.
18:07 Struggling to survive on the streets.
19:40 Gaining recognition for the improvement of prison hospice.
23:06 Screening FACING FEAR for educational purposes.
26:24 A series of global short films.
28:09 FACING FEAR, clip.
29:14 Revisiting the past for the films.
34:55 FACING FEAR, clip.