Hollow Tree: Film Screening Q&A with the Director & Three Protagonists (Video)
- - Welcome to Tulane University
- and to the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South’s screening of Hollow Tree.
- I'm Rebecca Snedeker, and I direct the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South,
- which is housed in Tulane School of Liberal Arts.
- We're thrilled to be here with you all for tonight's special screening
- and discussion with the film's director and three protagonists.
- We'll begin with a land acknowledgment by Dr. Judy Maxwell.
- Dr. Maxwell is a professor in the Department of Anthropology,
- and since 2010, she's been heading a collaborative team
- of Tulane students and the Tunica-Biloxi tribal members and scholars,
- the Tunica-Biloxi language and Culture Revitalization Program,
- working to revitalize the Tunica language. We're grateful to Dr. Maxwell
- for serving on the program committee of the Center's
- Tulane Gulf South Indigenous Studies Symposium for the past three iterations,
- and to her for launching the new Native American Studies minor
- within the School of Liberal Arts.
- Welcome, Dr. Maxwell. [Applause].
- - [Greeting in Tunica].
- Good evening, y’all. I'm Judith Maxwell.
- It wasn't a surprise, and I'm pleased to be here.
- I greeted you in Tunica.
- So just a small sample that the language is coming back.
- The last native speaker died in 1948, but we now have,
- according to ethnologue, we have 32 young speakers.
- The last count I had was 80. But you know who's counting? All right.
- I would like to begin this evening and thank you all for being here
- with the land acknowledgment and the land acknowledgment that I'm going to read to
- you is the official Tulane land acknowledgment.
- If you ever want this land acknowledgment,
- or one like it, it's on the Tulane landing page.
- You have to go all the way through everything on the page.
- At the very bottom, there's a link to this acknowledgement.
- Well, let me share this with you and let us all think about what these words mean.
- The Choctaw, Houma, Chitimacha, Biloxi and other
- Native peoples have lived on this land since time immemorial.
- Their identities are inextricably connected to this place.
- With gratitude and honor, Tulane University pays
- tribute to the original inhabitants of this land.
- The city of New Orleans was not built upon virgin soil,
- but merely served as a continuation of a great indigenous trade hub
- known in Choctaw as Bulbancha, the place of other tongues.
- For thousands of years, people lived along the Mississippi River
- and Bulbancha served as a place for diverse cultures to come together.
- We acknowledge the grounds of our campus and the city around us
- as home to numerous tribes before and after the arrival of Europeans.
- Their tradition of community and sharing demonstrated by indigenous peoples
- enabled European immigrants to survive in a foreign environment
- and has influenced New Orleans and the southeastern culture
- since colonization began.
- From food and music to art and language, Native Americans continue
- to leave their mark on our city and academic community.
- We recognize that as a result of broken treaties and involuntary removals,
- Native Americans were often forced from their lands.
- We remember and pay respect to the communities impacted by these actions.
- Yet the resilient voices of Native Americans
- are still heard and remain an inseparable part of our local culture.
- In that spirit, we acknowledge that indigenous nations
- that have lived and continue to live thrive here.
- That's the end of the official land acknowledgment.
- And I would just like to note
- that the purpose of a land acknowledgment isn't just to say some words,
- but to think about what they mean and to think about Indigenous people.
- So I'd like to share just a little bit, tiny little bit more
- of the Tunica language with you.
- So in the Tunica language, the word for an indigenous person is [Tunica].
- And if you translate that, that means free person.
- And the [Tunica] are contrasted
- with the [Tunica], who are people that we would call
- African-Americans today, [Tunica], which is literally white people
- and all of these peoples are divided into different ethnic groups.
- So, for example, among the [Tunica], the white people
- we have [Tunica], which you can probably figure out is English.
- We have [Tunica], which you can probably figure out are the Spanish.
- And then there are the French who are [Tunica], the real white people.
- So I understand that
- there's nothing much that we can do about our ancestry.
- We are who we are.
- But there is something that we can do about our future.
- And I hope that in the spirit of the movie that you're going to see this evening
- and all of us who are gathered together in hope and solidarity,
- that we can all become [Tunica]. [Tunica greeting].
- - Thank you, Dr. Maxwell.
- And I'll continue with some more gratitudes.
- I want to thank Dean Brian Edwards and the School of Liberal Arts
- Dean's office for their support.
- Our team at the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South, Dr. Denise Frazier,
- Regina Cairns, and Demi Ward in hosting this programing.
- The Liberal arts interdisciplinary programs
- who have co-sponsored and publicized this event
- Africana Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Studies,
- as well as Tulane Library for documenting this evening.
- And finally, to everyone who helped
- spread the word and all of you who have joined us this evening on campus.
- The New Orleans Center for the Gulf South
- is an interdisciplinary place-based center
- that promotes the understanding of New Orleans and the Gulf South
- region and the region's relationship to the planet.
- We support research, teaching and community engagement
- that relate the local to the global. And all of our programing
- is based on the idea that the more we understand where we are,
- the more fully we can engage our democracy and therefore our collective destiny.
- We have a lot of upcoming events working with a new registration process.
- We are grateful to everyone who registered.
- That means you will also receive our newsletter,
- which you're welcome to unsubscribe from, but we hope that you might
- stick around on it. We always feature our events and things
- going on publications and presentations by our research fellows,
- and we recommend other people's events and other organization events
- as well as advertising select job positions and funding opportunities.
- We have an upcoming fellowship deadline, a research fellowship deadline
- that is next Monday, March 13th, and it's called the Global South Fellowship.
- And for some logistics for the bathrooms,
- if you need to go there, head out the doors in the back
- and take your first left and then another left.
- And at the end of the film,
- I want to let you know we're going to let all the credits roll.
- That doesn't always happen.
- But we want to appreciate everyone who made this film and just have a minute
- to continue letting it kind of sink in.
- And then I'll invite director Kira Akerman
- and the protagonists to the stage for a brief discussion and a Q&A.
- After the discussion, we welcome you to join us in Newcomb Hall,
- and we'll be having people help direct you there if you don't know where it is.
- It's on the end of the Newcomb Quad here
- toward the right when you exit the building.
- And on the first floor in the faculty lounge, we'll have refreshments
- and hope to continue the conversation with anyone who's able to stay.
- Please know that this intro and the Q&A after the screening
- will be filmed and available online. And a safety note,
- just please keep a pathway in the aisle for at least two people to pass.
- So now to the film, at last.
- The film Hollow Tree is winner of the 2022 New Orleans Film Festival's
- Best Louisiana Feature Jury Award and the Populist Audience Award.
- The film is a centerpiece in the growing body of work that shares narratives
- that tell the story of this region from the formation of our deltaic lobes
- and draws connections between our land, water, racialized histories
- and of indigenous and African descended peoples and infrastructure.
- The director, Kira Akerman, is the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South Fellow.
- She received a fellowship for Station 15, which is a beautiful documentary short
- that served as a prototype for Hollow Tree, her first feature film.
- And in 2019, she received a Monroe Fellowship
- to support production of this feature film.
- More recently, she's been an ongoing consultant in the center's
- strategic planning and has been an invaluable partner to think
- through the role of climate justice education in the liberal arts.
- She's been a guest speaker at many departments and programs
- at Tulane, including Architecture, Digital Media Practices,
- Environmental Studies and History. And for those of you who are faculty here,
- I would love to talk to you about the use of the film in your classes.
- She also just had an exhibit at the Small Center.
- And I want to mention, speaking of the Small Center,
- which is in Central City, some of you may know
- is a part of the School of Architecture.
- There's an exhibit there called Extractivism
- that relates deeply to this film that I recommend.
- We're excited to have many of the film crew members with us tonight,
- and also its stars.
- So in addition to Kira, I want to welcome the film's protagonists,
- Kenzie Fanguy, Tanielma DaCosta and Annabelle Pavy.
- We also have producer Chachi Hauser here, executive producer Jolene Pinder
- who's also professor at Tulane and cinematographer Maxime Kathari.
- Welcome you all.
- And we want to also acknowledge Tulane professors and instructors
- who played a role in the film. Jelagat Cheruiyot,
- who's an evolutionary biologist in the School of Science and Engineering,
- and Aron Chang, who's a former instructor in the School of Architecture,
- as well as former Tulane professor and environmental historian
- Andy Horowitz, who's now at Yale and UConn.
- And with that, we're now going to roll the film, and we'll see you after.
- What I'd love to do is invite everyone -- sorry,
- I just did that because I'm so moved by the film.
- I get just kind of like somatically overwhelmed.
- It's really beautiful. Y’all have made such a beautiful film.
- So I want to invite everyone who's here who contributed to making this film.
- Kira and the three protagonists who you've met through the film,
- and also the producer and cinematographer who are here and anyone else
- who's contributed to the film.
- Whether you gave feedback out of focus group or showed the film
- in a class or gave money during fundraising
- in any way, just please stand up for a minute.
- [Applause].
- Thank you.
- All right.
- So I'm going to start with some questions.
- So this is Kira, who you haven't seen on camera yet.
- Kira Akerman the director and Annabelle, Mekenzie and Tanielma.
- And I just want to start with asking the protagonists
- if you can bring us into a moment during the filmmaking in the film
- production, where you learned something from from a place where you were
- that was previously unfamiliar and just what was it like being part
- of this filmmaking and learning from different people in different places?
- And do y’all have a mic up here?
- Okay, great.
- And we can pass these to...
- - Hello. Okay.
- I think of the many moments that I could talk endlessly about.
- One of them that stood out to me was whenever I was out
- at the Atchafalaya River Basin with Annie and Roy, that's the couple who was
- talking about the tree that was chopped down, the cypress tree.
- And what I observed during my time with them was
- the happiness that can come with living so close to nature and
- the home that I grew up in was just surrounded by streets.
- I didn't have a lot of like field time, I guess you could say.
- And I think that whether you recognize it or not
- within yourself, every human has this part of themself
- that's so drawn to nature because we are from nature.
- And I really --
- even from observing the film,
- like time and time again, I observe even more
- how much they influenced me.
- - Every time I see the boat scenes, mainly the one shrimping with my grandpa
- that is very dear because, you know, after we filmed that
- and then like we all went home and started talking about it,
- like everything looked very different to him.
- So the land slowly, well, eroding very quickly.
- As for him just taking a couple of years away from it and him going back
- and really not recognizing certain places, it was, you know, kind of
- like it made me kind of like sad for him.
- Like, wow, like you've only been away for a couple, you know, years and you going
- back and you don't even, like, recognize it yourself.
- You know, when I talk about a childhood fishing spot
- and I hold that so dearly because that's, you know, like where we started from
- and I can go there today and it look completely different.
- And I mean, I still have the memories.
- It's just like to like, physically see it. It, you know, it kind of hurts. So.
- - Yeah, I think for myself, just thinking about speaking with Eve
- being in Freetown and Cancer Alley and just -- Oh, you can't...
- Oh, do I need to move it closer? Is that better? Okay.
- I was just saying that being
- speaking with Eve in Cancer Alley and being in Freetown
- and just learning about how, you know,
- when you have this instance where your own experiences are evidence
- and for that to not be taken seriously or not to be like, credible or...
- that was definitely very powerful for me to know that,
- you know, we're in spaces and systems that, you know, are...
- we are, our experience can be devalued, but that that shouldn't
- keep us from holding onto them
- and knowing that they’re valid and that that is a source of experience.
- That is a source of credibility just as any expert or anything like that.
- That evidence is important.
- And yeah, it also takes me back to being in the Army Corps of Engineers
- and being like, I know what I know. I know what I see.
- I know what I've heard. I see this.
- And for, for you tell me that that's not true.
- That’s kind of crazy.
- - What did y’all learn from each other?
- What are some moments where you realize - I mean, some of them that are so
- beautiful are in the film - but are there other ones that come to mind to me?
- - I've said this in a previous Q&A, but I honestly mean this.
- Working with Annabelle not working with y’all...
- Learning and gaining a friendship with Annabelle and Tanielma
- has honestly given me a sense of,
- I don't know, like I feel more comfortable being my true self.
- They have given me the outmost support and guidance
- throughout this whole journey that we've been on.
- So I take away from them as just believing in myself more
- and I cannot thank y’all enough for that.
- - I think what I learned is that the kind of the act
- of participating in environmental activism requires community.
- Community often results in friendship
- and being able to observe the different ways that each of us
- absorbs information and the different outlooks
- we had on it are further evidence for the necessity to learn together.
- And I think that's another great reason to, like, share the movie even more,
- because now all of you have a different outlook on it
- and you are a part of the family now of learning with us.
- - Yeah, I'll just piggyback on that. Community has been so important
- because I mean, everything that we learned was so heavy.
- Like I think about just being, you know, at the plantation after Robin.
- And I love the fact that we were there talking about that together
- and kind of, you know, collecting everything.
- And it's so important because, you know,
- facing climate change is not something that anyone can do on their own.
- So I'm so grateful I did have you guys because it is so heavy.
- But when we think about how all of us care about it,
- all of us can come together for it. It definitely strengthens us.
- So I hope you guys can see our friendship and as well, and feel that as well.
- - One thing that -- there's so many things that again moved me about the film.
- It's something that I want everyone to see, particularly in southern Louisiana,
- but there's so many ways that it relates to elsewhere in the world.
- And when I think of you, Kira, as a friend and colleague being here,
- I’d just love to hear your perspective on what inspired you to make the film.
- I think one of the wild things, ways that has been a gift in my life,
- in addition to the long timeline
- that it sets up for us to learn about and be able to understand our surroundings
- more is just the role of infrastructure in our lives and engineering
- and just seeing you all hang out on this oil rig and come to know one another
- in that setting is really profound to me because so many of those things that
- our lives depend on in a variety of ways and that impact us so deeply
- are hidden and not visible.
- So if you could just share some
- about some of the choices you made in coming to making the film.
- And just I want to say how much I admired the...
- how you and your team like laid out just the exposition of the film
- and the complexity of the connections that you're making over time
- throughout the film and how beautiful that is.
- And I know how challenging that is to to describe
- and really clearly educate us in what is happening around us.
- - Yeah, it's very, very hard [laughter].
- Every issue in this state is connected to myriad other issues.
- You can't talk about one without there being so many other problems. So
- I before this film, I made a short film that's 15 minutes long
- and it's about a young person
- exploring the pump station system in Louisiana or New Orleans, rather.
- And as she
- learns about this underground system, she comes to connect it to herself
- and her own identity and the ways that she feels oppressed like water.
- And it was such a powerful experience to learn alongside
- this young person in the short 15 minute film
- that I wanted to expand it into a longer film
- about a larger drainage basin.
- So moving from the pump station system in New Orleans to the
- Mississippi River basin, with not one but three young people
- who lived in different geographies in this place.
- And seeing if together we could figure out
- how the river shaped us and how our infrastructure shapes us,
- particularly as women here.
- Yeah.
- - This'll be my last question then I’ll open it up.
- But I could ask things all night.
- But one of the things that is so beautiful in
- the film is the sound and all the sounds in the film -
- the sound design, the location recording, your voices, your singing.
- We're doing a project through the Center for the Gulf South where Dr. Frazier
- and I have been hosting and organizing a series
- called Anthroposonic, and considering the intersections of music,
- sound studies, and climate change and racial and social justice.
- And we've invited a different artist every semester for the past year
- and a half to collaborate with us and present work at that intersection.
- And we just took a group of mostly students and some members of the public
- out to Lily Bayou near Lake Maurepas,
- and an artist, Demi Ward, who also works with us
- recorded sounds in the landscape and is going to make a composition.
- But just having this focus on sound and moving through
- that experience really changed the day for me.
- Like we were... when we set out,
- we went under the interstate in our kayaks and I felt the vibration
- of that infrastructure and the sound of the traffic.
- And then as we moved further into the bayou,
- there were more animal sounds, or we could hear them more.
- They weren't masked.
- Anyhow, I just wanted to bring that question to y’all this evening
- and just think about just the way that you all listened to one another
- and listened to the people who are sharing information is really beautiful to me.
- And we've been able to -- we’re here listening to y’all.
- Can you just speak of any sound that comes to mind
- when I ask that from the landscape or from the film
- and elaborate if you want or not.
- But I would just love to hear what you think.
- And then Kira also at some point to hear about your process
- in designing the soundscape.
- Sound is something that so often overlooked gets overlooked in film
- but is essential.
- And I'm grateful that my first lesson in filmmaking was, If it sounds good,
- it looks good because it's so hard to tolerate
- sound that we can't hear if we want to understand what's happening.
- So I’ll pitch that to y’all now.
- - Well I think about being at the old river control structure.
- You can hear the Mississippi River rushing very, very well.
- And it's just this contradiction of knowing how powerful
- and how like how much force it has.
- Yet it's like being controlled. And that was definitely
- -- like being able to hear it kind of makes it more alive, knowing that
- this body of water is -- well not body of water,
- but this force is flowing
- and it's sad that it’s being controlled just like how it's alive, just like us.
- - I think throughout the film there were like, varying pitches
- of like the grumbling of flowing water
- and it kind of... it makes you think about like,
- I don't know, this grumbling. I personify a lot of nature, like
- the ending little song that I sang, I was like, personifying a tree.
- - [Inaudible].
- - No, no, no singing. [Laughter].
- And I, I think especially today, whenever I was listening to, like,
- the grumbling at the Old River control structure, it kind of feels like
- the grumbling of Mother Nature.
- And like, even whenever things seem like
- they're going okay, there's always an underlying
- passing of water that is influencing our structures and ecosystems,
- whether we’re regarding it or not, actively.
- - I too will talk about the water.
- [Laughter].
- So the sound of the water crashing against a boat, it's, you know,
- it could be scary if it's like, you know, strong and forceful,
- but also take into account this slow just cruising waves and just smashing.
- Any time I've ever been on a boat and I hear that I can go straight to sleep.
- It's peaceful to me. But not only that.
- I was asked a question the other day and they asked me,
- Are you scared to lose your home?
- And I'm like -- or like, are you scared knowing, like,
- knowing something is coming?
- And I'm like, You can wake up and be scared every day, but
- if you live with that, then you will never experience, you know, life as it is.
- Life is beautiful.
- You can't take, you can't live with having fear that something's going to happen.
- It's like you said about being scared.
- You can't do that because then you miss out on the opportunities
- that are right in front of you. But you're too worried about being scared.
- So y’all water forceful mind slow
- bringing back memories of just taking a good nap on a boat. [Laughter].
- - I don't think I can say anything better than that. [Laughter].
- All the water sounds are intentional.
- Intentional water sound design.
- So when you hear -- when you see the levees, you're hearing
- constrained, restrained water.
- And when you're in more organic, natural places, you're hearing
- more free flowing water.
- And it's working on a very subtle level throughout the film.
- - And a shout out to your beautiful composer, Free Feral.
- - Free is amazing.
- - And who did the sound design?
- - Arjun Sheth. He's also totally amazing. Yeah.
- - So let's open it up to the audience. And I'm curious,
- I would like to foreground any student voices
- if there are any students who have questions.
- We want to kick it to y’all first. Yes.
- - First, thanks to y’all for being vulnerable and doing this work,
- it really is extremely meaningful.
- I’m from Houma as well about ten years older than you guys,
- and I spent my entire life basically trying to articulate
- what you guys did really so, so thoroughly and so movingly.
- I guess my question is,
- do you know from this experience like the moment that things clicked to you
- like I grew up in Houma going to public school where I learned
- all these factors but never the synthesis of
- how it all worked together in a system.
- So now, having had this kind of an experience,
- do you think that it’s changed what you're going to do with your life
- or how you communicate about where you're from?
- [Inaudible].
- - Yeah.
- So as soon as you said I immediately thought about being
- at that little restaurant
- and watching that video clip of the land just slowly disappearing.
- That was the first time I've ever seen it like on a screen.
- I mean, like I said, I've had teachers tell me Houma would be underwater.
- I knew that, you know, we lose a football field every hour.
- And when you hear that, you're like,
- okay, but actually, like actually seeing it is like, wow.
- So for me that, you know, and then like I said, you know,
- I can go back to old spots and I'm like, wow, this is --
- I see it on the screen, but now I can also see it visibly.
- Yeah, it makes me, you know, like, what can we do, you know, to
- preserve the little land that we have left before it is nothing but water?
- And then we also have no land for our homes.
- You know, it makes everyone relocate. And I'm a big Houma person.
- Like, you know, I have family who no longer live in Houma and they come down
- as their vacation Houma and I'm like, You coming to Houma for vacation?
- I miss being home. I missed the bayou. I miss just being here and that's it.
- I mean, that’s what it's about.
- Coming back home and being in the scenery that you've seen all your life.
- - Who else?
- - So.
- - Oh.
- - Oh, sorry. I was just going to say like, it's 1897, just knowing that,
- you know, some things are actually very --
- I mean, we learn about, you know, Okay, we need to fix the,
- all the problems with the environment and there’s all these little factors.
- But we -- I don't think I really ever, it ever clicked until that moment that
- everything was deliberately
- like everything were choices made over decades.
- That was really key for me because it's like,
- Oh, you need to save water and you need to recycle.
- But it's like, why? [Laughter].
- - I think the moment that things started clicking for me
- was when I visited the Whitney Plantation, because it kind of showed me
- like how much of history has promoted the restriction of our, of our
- natural ecosystems as well as our fellow individuals
- companied with learning about Cancer Alley
- and how the effects are still present today.
- And so seeing like a broader picture kind of
- allowed everything else to fall into place.
- - Other questions.
- Yes. Hello, Professor.
- - Thank you for being so vulnerable, so brave. This is a question for Kira.
- How did you find them?
- - Well, Lauren Cargo, who's sitting over there, and Chachi
- and I spent a very long time driving
- sometimes together, sometimes separately around the state,
- interviewing young people and asking them what they noticed
- in their changing environments.
- And at the same time, we were sending emails to friends
- and I knew I wanted to work with three young people
- in different geographical locations.
- And so I was emailing friends, saying like Do you know any young person
- who is curious and cool and, you know, might want to oddly be on camera
- for an extended period of time
- and I got a bunch of emails back and it was those emails from friends
- ultimately that led me to these three, and it was multiple people
- in their communities who are like Annabelle, Tanielma, Mekenzie.
- And then they all asked really beautiful questions about why,
- why their community was flooding so much or why they weren't being taught
- about these issues in school, or why was nobody talking about the land sinking?
- And I had really compelling conversations with each of them.
- And that was it.
- - Other questions. Yes.
- - Again, just amazing.
- I’m a seventh grade teacher and I so want to show this to my class.
- I’m very excited.
- First thing that popped in my head
- when you all were at the Army Corps of Engineers, you were talking
- to the front lady of the desk and then a public affairs guy.
- Were scientists not available or engineers to talk to when you were there?
- - The woman actually who we were talking to is an engineer.
- - Oh. Very interesting.
- - Yes, she was I think following Army Corps protocol and, as you saw,
- regurgitating what she was supposed to say. Yeah.
- - [Inaudible].
- - We didn't -- we weren't intending to set her up either.
- That just had, that organically occurred.
- - Yes. Grace.
- - Yeah, thanks so much y’all.
- Y’all are very inspiring and this was really beautiful to watch.
- I just was curious what y’all are up to now
- and what you're curious about whether it's around
- kind of environment stuff or whether its just like what’re you doing.
- - Yeah. So right now I am a senior in graphic design at LSU.
- And like, it's remarkable
- how much this project has influenced the things that I'm creating.
- So right now I'm doing my final thesis project and it's really central around
- bringing people back into Louisiana because I started my research recognizing
- like cultural trauma that has existed in Cajun communities
- and it was such a hard and difficult topic to
- just express to a community.
- And so I, I developed this kind of call to action to invite people
- back to this beautifully blooming community
- in the South and...
- Cajun community.
- Yeah, Lafayette, New Orleans, everywhere in the south,
- Southern Louisiana in particular.
- But it was heavily influenced by the knowledge
- and appreciation that I have for my community that I learned
- through this, through this film.
- - I’m currently still in Houma. I'm working.
- Lately what I've been doing, and I'm very proud of this.
- You know, so I've been taking off work to come to screenings
- and they're like, What are you doing? I'm like, Watch my trailer.
- This is my trailer.
- And they're like, It's only a minute. I'm like, Yeah, you got to come.
- You got to come with me one day and watch it. They’re like, okay.
- So my thing is, whatever I'm just
- -- I don't know what we're doing next, but we're going to do something next.
- But my thing is spreading what we already experienced to people around me.
- So that's what I'm doing.
- - Okay. I'm studying computer engineering and I want to go into research
- on how to build tech more sustainably using materials
- in a better way and increasing access to technology.
- That's what I really want to do.
- So I'm doing computer engineering and some international studies
- with the concentration in environment and development.
- So, I mean, I've wanted to be a computer engineer
- since I was pretty young, but the film definitely
- allowed me to create a space where I can think about our community
- and still be myself and bring my experiences into my field.
- - Yes.
- - Oh, how so at all did it change the way that you feel about
- where you're from [inaudible] growing up in different places,
- but like how this shared common river and experiences [inaudible]?
- - Oh okay. Being from Baton Rouge and you know, seeing the oil refineries,
- it made me think about how Louisiana has a toxic relationship with oil.
- And it's kind of like, you know, we need to value ourselves.
- We need to value the culture we have that it's priceless.
- Yeah, that made me think about how, you know, even though
- we have this strong tie to oil, it's not benefiting us.
- So yeah, time to change things.
- - So I would say to enjoy
- where you live and appreciate it because you never know what can happen,
- but also to come together as a community and try to see what you can do.
- Where as a whole, rather than have one person
- try to do it all by themselves because that's not going to happen.
- So staying together as a community and still enjoying where you live and
- loving where you live.
- - Honestly, like loving where you live, that's like the whole motivation behind
- preserving Louisiana environment. It's like, that's the drive.
- That wasn't my initial answer, but it's just like, I love where I live.
- I want to preserve it.
- I want everybody to come here and and celebrate with us.
- But I think what I understand about my community,
- I guess, in Lafayette, is I address it with
- a critical eye, but also a patient eye.
- Like understanding the truths about enslaved people in our history,
- but also understanding you can't change history.
- You can change the future, hopefully for the better.
- - Yes.
- - I have a question related to all the screenings.
- Do the reactions differ in terms of the age of the audience, you know?
- Like do older people respond differently to the movie than your peers?
- Or were generally the reactions to it [inaudible]?
- - I'm trying to think. I mean, I think it's kind of similar.
- Y’all just say it in different ways
- if that makes -- because we always get
- Army Corps of Engineers questions and then yeah, it's pretty much.
- - Yeah, I think there's a really good response.
- Everyone is blown away in one way or another.
- And I think that, you know, even though we're young and we're bringing
- that perspective, I still think that it is able to reach everyone.
- I think they can still find themselves.
- Everyone can feel tied to our narrative to some degree. Yeah.
- - Yeah, I think across all screenings we've been met with this
- kind of reciprocation which before, before we premiered, it was like
- a kind of a build up of nervousness, like how, how are people going to see me
- when it's not about how are people going to see me?
- It's about how are people going to see the subject as a whole?
- And there's been like outstanding reciprocation of
- what we're expressing.
- - I still get nervous every time.
- - Yeah, we have a survey and we'll send it to all of you,
- but these guys haven't seen it.
- But I can affirm that the surveys sort of echo what all of them are reporting.
- - I heard, I think it's Miriam Cava has like very commonly
- she's an abolitionist contemporary who says like hope is a choice.
- And so I'm wondering
- as you all are, you know, articulated at the end of the film,
- like this is the world you're going to be inheriting.
- And so what sort of where are you finding hope?
- And what changes would you want to see that are working towards that preservation
- you were talking about Annabelle?
- And then, um, are there any efforts that you would want to highlight
- particularly that are inspiring to you?
- - I think in my own life, especially recently,
- what kind of brings me hope is like reconnecting with my community.
- I think whenever I moved away from Lafayette to Baton Rouge,
- I kind of felt this need to like, run away from home and find myself.
- Yeah, except like, the only thing I've realized is that I, I just,
- I love the place that I'm from, and it is what gives me hope.
- This is one example that, like, brings such a smile to my face.
- This past summer I was back in Lafayette and I was living with my parents
- and my dad invited me to a Cajun jam and I just sat on the sidelines.
- I don't really know. I forgot how to Cajun dance.
- Can't play any Cajun instruments, but just the opportunity to be
- there and observe just like, filled my soul.
- Yeah, everybody go to that.
- - Okay.
- Well, you said that hope is a choice.
- I think it made me think about
- just how the biggest problem we tend to face
- is that people think it's impossible or that it's insurmountable of issues and
- I think just thinking about how
- in the same manner that, you know, decisions have resulted in
- what we're faced now, in the same way, decisions
- are the only thing that can, you know, counteract that.
- It is a choice to to come together.
- It is a choice to do what you can with what you have.
- And it's a choice to talk about it. Have these these discussions.
- I mean, what I really hope to see or I hope to change -- that I hope to
- what changes I hope to see.
- It's just that there's just so much of a taboo like period in talking about
- the environment sometimes.
- I want there to be more of a comfortability just so that, you know it's
- so -- although the divisive,
- the divisiveness that, you know, I want everyone to be able to see that
- no matter where you are or where you're from, what you're
- going through, who you are, it's all of our problem.
- So, yeah, community. Yeah.
- - My thing is that Miss Tammy, who was on there with us
- -- I don't, I don't talk very well.
- So she said that it’s going to be hard for us to stay a tribe.
- And it brought back to mind on that down at Point-au-Chien
- along the island road there are people who are refusing to leave.
- So that gives me hope that,
- you know, people may flee from Houma, flee from the bayou
- but there's some of us
- who still live there and who will not give up their home that easily.
- So that's that's my hope to still being a tribe and keeping that language alive.
- And hopefully one day I too learn it if I can master English first.
- [Laughter].
- - All right, let's have one last question.
- - Oh, this might be more for Kira, but how did you choose Hollow Tree?
- And like, what does that title mean to you?
- - How did it -- well, I just wanted to say quickly to the other question
- and then I'll answer that question that I think also learning is helpful.
- Once you see something one way, you can't ever go back.
- And I think together we demonstrated that.
- Hollow Tree, I first saw hollow trees when I was making a short film many years ago,
- and they were just so evocative as an image.
- And the way that we learn in this film is by looking at our environment
- together and noticing it and asking questions about it.
- Why are the trees hollow? Why are there so many stumps?
- Why is it flooding so often? Why is the land sinking?
- Why are there potholes everywhere?
- So the hollow tree is sort of a starting point.
- Why is the tree hollow? And the answer reveals a lot about
- the system of economic systems, of exploitation and control
- that we're living under and that shape our natural and unnatural world and ourselves.
- So it is one manifestation of that.
- Do you want to add anything having written
- lyrics about hollow tree and you spent a lot of time there?
- - Yeah, let me think about it for a second.
- I think I can speak on the lyrics in that earlier
- I mentioned I tend to personify nature and I think in that last song
- I was trying to express the nature of the tree itself.
- How though its core is empty, its walls still stood strong
- and so this kind of metaphorical heart still persevered.
- Any other final meditations on the Hollow tree?
- Or a hollow tree?
- No, alright.
- - Alright, we are going to have a reception for anyone who wants to continue
- the conversation and be with everyone over in Newcomb Hall
- and we’ll direct you there once we are closed.
- Thank you all so much so deeply for making this film
- and for being here tonight and bringing your voices to Tulane.
- You're incredibly inspiring and generous, generous hearted.
- And I appreciate the risk that you took to co-create this
- and be your full selves on camera and here on campus.
- And I look forward to seeing how your lives unfold
- and how we continue living here together.
- It's an honor to be here with you tonight.
- - Thank you for having us.
- - So let's give them a big round of applause.
- [Applause].