The director and producer of the San Francisco AIDS documentary We Were Here shared his creative process along with other notable documentary filmmakers Oct. 12 as part of Chicago Ideas Week.
Hosted at the Gene Siskel Film Center, "CIW Talk: Film" featured Fisher Stevens, Chicago-born actor and Oscar-winning producer of dolphin doc The Cove; Zak Piper, one of the co-producers of the acclaimed Chicago-based gang violence documentary The Interrupters along with the film's three main subjects; and other documentary film innovators.
David Weissman, whose film We Were Here will play as one of the centerpiece documentaries at the Reeling Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival in November, spoke about the spontaneous genesis of his filmmaking career as well as the idea for this film. He used the term "winging it" and meant it in the most professional way possible.
"It's an unconventional way to work and yet it's the only way that I know how to work," he said.
We Were Here tells of the arrival of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco through five personal stories, all people Weissman knew as he has lived most of his life—including through the outbreak of HIV—in San Francisco. They became involved in the film simply because he ran into them and he instinctively felt their stories would be ideal for the film he wanted to make.
After making the documentary The Cockettes, for which he and filmmaking partner Bill Weber won the LA Film Critics Award for Best Documentary in 2002, Weissman had no plans to make another documentary and endure what he called an exhausting and stressful process.
"My feeling was I can't imagine another movie that would speak to who I am on as many different levels," Weissman said. "That movie was about hippies and drag queens and politics, San Francisco, LSD and all the things I care about … I cant imagine any other subject matter that would compel me that would speak to that many aspects of who I am."
Yet he found it in We Were Here. Just as with The Cockettes, Weissman said he feared that if he didn't make the film no one else would, but if someone else did, they wouldn't do it with the same affection. That personal connection to the story resulted in such an intuitive process that he woke up in the middle of the night before his first interview realizing he hadn't done any research and had no notes.
"And very quickly I realized you know this is my story we're telling here, this is something that l lived through, the story I'm going to tell from an insider's perspective and that's the research I need for this," he said, "and it was a wonderful moment of revelation for me."
The other filmmakers shared similarly unique creative processes for their films. Stevens shared how his passion for the oceans resulted in The Cove and former musician Justin Dillon explained how his 2008 human trafficking doc Call + Response worked to inspire viewers to take action and the next step through music. Former New York Times journalist Jigar Mehta showed how his Internet project 18 Days in Egypt uses collaborative journalism through cell phone videos and images to tell the full story of the days leading up to Hosni Mubarak's resignation.
Specific to Chicago, three of the main subjects of The Interrupters, a new film by Hoop Dreams director Steve James, talked about the risks involved in bringing a camera to Chicago's most dangerous neighborhoods. James followed members of violence prevention organization CeaseFire, Ricardo "Cobe" Williams, Eddie Bocanegra and Ameena Matthews, all who actively walk the streets of Chicago to stop violence where it happens. With co-producer Piper, they discussed the challenging journey of making their film, which premiered this year at Sundance and is playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center through Oct. 20.
