GMU Visiting Filmmakers Series Presents (T)Error Nov 11 4:30pm JCC
Wednesday, November 11, 2015 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM EST
Johnson Center, Cinema
Who is watching the watchers?
(T)Error
Wednesday 11 November at 4:30pm
Johnson Center Cinema
Screening and discussion with Lyric R. Cabral
(T)Error is the first documentary to place filmmakers on the ground during an active FBI counterterrorism sting operation. Through the perspective of Saeed "Shariff" Torres, a 63-year-old Black revolutionary turned informant, viewers get an unfettered glimpse of the government's counterterrorism tactics and the murky justifications behind them. Taut, stark, and controversial, (T)Error illuminates the fragile relationships between individual and surveillance state in modern America, and asks who is watching the watchers?
(T)Error won the Special Jury Prize for Break Out First Feature at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Full Frame Documentary Festival.
Lyric R. Cabral is a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker committed to reporting stories seldom seen. Cabral studied visual journalism at Rochester Institute of Technology and the International Center of Photography. Her documentary work has been supported by artist grants from the BBC, ITVS, Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, Chicken and Egg Pictures, the Smithsonian Institution Photography Initiative, and the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund.
"One of the conversations that I hope (T)ERROR inspires is highlighting the personal nature of FBI surveillance. It is important to note that FBI informants are selectively paired with investigative targets based on shared commonalities... The FBI will hire Black informants to target Black people engaged in social movements, such as the national Say Her Name and Black Lives Matter movements." - Lyric Cabral (May 29, 2015)
See the film's PBS website. And see this Democracy Now interview with Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe (April 2015)
Special guest Jason Osder will facilitate our Q&A. Jason is the director and producer of the award-winning documentary Let the Fire Burn, assistant professor at The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, and a partner at Amigo Media, a color-correction, postproduction, and training company. In August, he wrote an essay on journalistic freedom and legal challenges for documentary filmmakers, "WTF! Will '(T)ERROR' Be Seen?"
This event is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by Film and Media Studies, Film and Video Studies, and African and African American Studies. Co-sponsored by Communication, Cultural Studies, DKA, English, Global Interdisciplinary Programs, History, Middle East Studies, ODIME, Photography, School of Art, Women and Gender Studies, and University Life.
Information: Cynthia Fuchs, cfuchs@gmu.edu
