{"id":15143,"date":"2018-03-26T18:51:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T18:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2018\/03\/26\/film-director-visits-clark-to-screen-documentary-about-ferguson-activists\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T14:31:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T18:31:59","slug":"film-director-visits-clark-to-screen-documentary-about-ferguson-activists","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2018\/03\/26\/film-director-visits-clark-to-screen-documentary-about-ferguson-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Film director visits Clark to screen documentary about Ferguson activists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><html><body><\/p>\n<p>Filmmaker Damon Davis was in Ferguson, Missouri, during the protests that followed the 2014 fatal police shooting of unarmed&nbsp;18-year-old Michael Brown. He had an idea for a film, but initially didn&rsquo;t bring a camera with him onto the streets. For the St. Louis native, the city in turmoil was not only a subject for a documentary &mdash; it was home.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I was in a place to speak for my community, and that&rsquo;s what I did,&rdquo; Davis told an audience in Clark&nbsp;University&#8217;s Razzo Hall following a screening of &ldquo;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whosestreets.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Whose Streets?<\/a>,&rdquo; an account of the Ferguson protests co-directed with Sabaah Folayan.<\/p>\n<p>The event was sponsored by the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/programs\/major-or-minor-screen-studies\">Screen Studies<\/a>&nbsp;Program;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/programs\/major-media-culture-and-arts\">Media, Culture, and the Arts<\/a>&nbsp;Program;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/clarknow.clarku.edu\/2017\/01\/20\/clark-universitys-new-center-for-gender-race-and-area-studies-hosts-open-house\/\">Center for Gender, Race, and Area Studies<\/a>; and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/clarku.campuslabs.com\/engage\/organization\/filmsociety\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clark University Film Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>From the Razzo stage, Davis recalled how he and Folayan built camaraderie with a core of Ferguson residents, who gave the filmmakers access to their personal lives. &ldquo;Whose Streets?&rdquo; juxtaposes intimate family moments with footage of the protests that erupted after Brown&rsquo;s shooting.<\/p>\n<p>Davis said he wanted to tell a deeper story than what was being portrayed by the media, whose excursions into Ferguson he likened to &ldquo;safaris.&rdquo; The film&rsquo;s personalized nature was not meant to generate empathy, he said, but to &ldquo;make a mirror that people have never seen themselves in.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>During a question-and-answer session, Davis noted it can take generations before matters of racism and inequality provoke a public response.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not hopeful it&rsquo;s going to get better, but I hope it does,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Davis plans to continue making provocative pieces that shine a light on uncomfortable truths.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been uncomfortable my whole damn life &mdash; that&nbsp;<em>is<\/em>&nbsp;my comfort zone,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just trying to level the playing field.&rdquo;<\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Filmmaker Damon Davis was in Ferguson, Missouri, during the protests that followed the 2014 fatal police shooting of unarmed&nbsp;18-year-old Michael Brown. He had an idea for a film, but initially didn&rsquo;t bring a camera with him onto the streets. For the St. Louis native, the city in turmoil was not only a subject for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15144,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":15144,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[225],"displayed_author":[324],"featured":[],"topic":[369,184],"class_list":["post-15143","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-humanities","displayed_author-clark-news-and-media-relations","topic-media","topic-visual-and-performing-arts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Film director visits Clark to screen documentary about Ferguson activists | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2018\/03\/26\/film-director-visits-clark-to-screen-documentary-about-ferguson-activists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Film director visits Clark to screen documentary about Ferguson activists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Filmmaker Damon Davis was in Ferguson, Missouri, during the protests that followed the 2014 fatal police shooting of unarmed&nbsp;18-year-old Michael Brown. 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