FEATURING ELLEN GAVIN - As the Trump administration continues to use ICE agents to terrorize cities such as Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere, local organizers have come up with innovative and creative ways to defend themselves. From rapid response networks to documentation of ICE arrests, people have been showing up for their neighbors and communities. A new short movie by filmmaker Ellen Gavin, called "The People, United," depicts the importance of solidarity against ICE raids.
Ellen Gavin is a writer/director living in Los Angeles and New York. Her theater and film work is female-driven and socially conscious, born from her experiences as a passionate lesbian feminist activist. She wrote and produced five digital short films as a part of the anti-Trump resistance movement in the U.S. She spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about her short film.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Sonali Kolhatkar: So, this very short film The People, United, it's not a documentary, it is a fictional depiction of basically an ICE raid. How do you describe it to audiences?
Ellen Gavin: Well, it's interesting because I, you know, as a writer, I mull over things and I look at situations and try to figure out you know, what needs to be said when, and it felt, when I started this process that getting neighbors to understand that we need to be responsible for each other and that we can stand up together because we have greater numbers, than they do. So, I wanted to come up with something that as a dramatic writer in a short form, where you could really touch people's hearts. And my theory with that is that you touch people's hearts in order to move their feet, right?
So, getting people to understand that if we have a neighborly response, if we have a response that's based in kindness and activism that we can actually impact the direction of this country.
Many different things come into it. It's a fascinating process. I had a friend who was managing a bathroom renovation, and she got a call from the project manager, and while she was talking to him, she heard this glass shatter, which was her new bathroom door. And I heard that story and it was ICE that was taking the worker. And I thought, wow, you know, that's Kristallnacht.
That's what happened in Germany. and so that kind of made its way into the script. So little pieces of things like that. The Japanese internment, which is so relevant, I wanted to bring that in.
