SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/528894
5 0 S X S W o r l d | M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 5 | S X S W. C O M or the filmmakers behind SXSW Grand Jury Prize-winners Krisha and Peace Officer, the idea of any kind of recognition was over and done with long before the announcement of their awards; both sets of directors were already ecstatic that their first feature-length efforts even made it into the SXSW Film Festival at all. As Brad Barber, the co-director of Documentary Feature Peace Officer, noted: "It was a huge thrill to get the invitation from Janet Pierson for our film to be in SXSW; it was one of the happier days I've experienced in the last long while." His co-director, Texan Scott Christopherson, had a similar reac- tion to getting in: "My wife and I immediately started jumping up and down." For Trey Edward Shultz, the writer-director of the Narrative Feature Krisha, getting in to SXSW was such a victory that anything else seemed impossible. "We went into this festival without a publicist, without a sales agent, without anything," he said. "We were just this little movie, and I think our World Premiere was so good on Monday – that's like when the vibe changed and the energy changed, and I thought 'Hey, we might get nominated for an award!' I never thought we might win." All joy at victory or even just for an invitation aside, both films speak with a strong voice – about pain, forgiveness and putting things right. Shults' Krisha fol- lows the title character, a woman and mother fighting with addic- tion and what it has done to her family. As portrayed by Krisha Fairchild, the title character's return for a happy family holiday after yet another long absence soon turns into a nightmare of hurt feel- ings, recriminations, confessions and ruined turkey. As the co-directors of Peace Officer, Brad Barber and Scott Christopherson look at the abstract through the specific, and the political through the personal. While the film is a discussion of the disturbing trend of increasingly-militarized police forces equipped with gear, guns and gadgets that officers may not even need, it also tells the story of William "Dub" Lawrence. An ex-cop who founded the first SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) in his home base of Davis County, Utah, 30 years ago, Lawrence saw that same SWAT team gun his son-in-law down in a situation that might not have escalated if SWAT hadn't shown up. For Barber and Christopherson, Lawrence was the key to the film. "Dub told me about his story, took me to his hangar and showed me things that he had edited on Final Cut Pro," Christopherson explained. "He had created a really compelling analysis of his son- in-law's death. Brad and I were doing a short film in Oregon, and we both decided after driving from Utah to Oregon and back that this was a really compelling story. That's my long-winded way of saying that we knew there were things going on in Utah, and in other places, with the militarization of police – but we definitely knew Dub's story that compelled us. " For Shults, Krisha was a labor of love that often approached the edge of madness: "Our actors in the movie hadn't even seen the final cut – so for our World Premiere on Monday, I was showing it to everyone, and I had no idea how everyone would feel … and I felt like I had lost perspective on the movie, because I also edited it, and I had seen it so many times – but in that screening, I was just an audience member again, and I loved the movie and I remembered why I loved it. At that point, I went up to the Q& A, and I was thinking 'I don't care if anyone liked it, I'm proud of it.' " But others did like it – so much so that Krisha earned the Grand Jury Prize, even with a minor hitch that Shults won't ever forget: "When they announced it at South By, we were sitting at the awards ceremony and their pro- jector was screwing up, and they called Creative Control up for an award for visual excellence, and then the slide flashed forward as they were walking up to the stage: "Grand Jury: Krisha" and we all gasped." As for Peace Officer's win, Christopherson saw it as the end of a long and wearying road: "I felt a lot of that emotion maybe come out of me at the awards ceremony; I think catharsis is a wonderful world to describe how I felt at that ceremony." Barber elaborated: "Any time you're making a film, I think espe- cially a documentary film, there's sort of this almost make-believe aspect to it. You're working on it. You have to take a break. You're raising money for it – and it's not really fully-formed as a tangible thing; you're just constantly working on it. But you get in to South by Southwest, and it's just like this gigantic stamp of legitimacy. And then to win that award, I guess, just took it to another level." Since SXSW, Peace Officer has been acquired by Submarine Entertainment. Meanwhile, Krisha played at the Cannes Critics' Week Sidebar earlier in May. F o r t h e ful l l i s t of 20 1 5's SX S W Fil m Awa r d w in n e r s , v i s it s x s w.co m / f il m /a wa r d s - eve n t s / w i n n e r s -20 1 5. First-time Filmmakers Earned Prize-Winning Triumphs at SXSW 2015 by JameS Rocchi F ( L- R) Peace O f f ice r 's B r a d B a rb e r, W il l i a m " D u b" La w re n ce a n d S cot t Ch ri s to p h e r s o n M I C H A E L B U C K N E R / G E T T Y I M A G E S