Independent Lens: ACORN and the Firestorm
ACORN and the Firestorm
Full Film (1:14:54) | IN Dramatic
Premiere: 5/21/2018 | Available until 6/5/2018
For 40 years, community organizing group ACORN sought to empower marginalized communities. Its critics, though, believed ACORN promoted government waste and ineffective activism. These competing perceptions exploded nationally in 2009, fueled by a YouTube video made by undercover activists. ACORN and the Firestorm goes beyond the 24-hour news cycle, cutting to the heart of real people affected by the scandal.
The film unfolds through the perspectives of then-student Hannah Giles and Lewis, two women on opposite sides of the political spectrum, as well as through the eyes of ACORN staff, to tell the story of a firestorm set off a polarizing media frenzy that set the tone for elections to come.
The Filmmakers
Reuben Atlas is an award-winning New York-based producer, director, and former lawyer. His first film, the feature music documentary, Brothers Hypnotic, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival. A co-production with ITVS and NTR, the film broadcast internationally, premiered on Independent Lens on PBS, and is distributed by Factory 25. He recently co-directed with Jerry Rothwell the Netflix and Arte-funded wine fraud documentary, Sour Grapes, which premiered at Hotdocs and is distributed by Dogwoof and Gravitas. Previously, he worked at a maximum-security prison, a music law firm, and at Legal Aid.
Sam Pollard has made over 50 films, including the Academy Award®-nominated documentary Four Little Girls, with Spike Lee, as well as HBO’s When the Levees Broke. He recently edited Alex Gibney’s Sinatra: All or Nothing for HBO and directed Slavery by Another Name for PBS. His 40 years of filmmaking credits as a producer, director, and editor also include the seminal civil rights series Eyes on the Prize.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/videos/acorn-and-the-firestorm/ (Entire film)