A quarter-century of film, conversation, and change

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One week, three venues, and 33 screenings later, the 25th annual Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival changed lives this past weekend. There was an overflow crowd for “Prime Minister,” documenting the election of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. There was an intimate screening of “A Man With Sole,” about designer and cultural change agent Kenneth Cole’s mission to lift the stigma facing those suffering mental illness. “Sing Sing Chronicles” documents a journalist who uncovered the tragic injustice of one man’s wrongful conviction. These are all stories about people committed to social justice and the long arc of the narrative to find justice — a reporter, a prime minister, a designer, and one photograph.

“Sing Sing Chronicles”
“I spent half my life in prison”: Jon-Adrian Velazquez (JJ) was granted clemency after almost 24 years in Sing Sing for a crime he did not commit. “Sing Sing Chronicles” pulls your heart out and places it on the scale of justice. The power of director Dawn Porter’s documentary, drawing on decades of investigative reporting by NBC producer and investigative reporter Dan Slepian, is both unyielding and revealing. And to have JJ on stage with Dawn Porter following the documentary, both revealing the life caught in injustice, not only speaks to Velazquez’s story, but to the capacity of this Island community to sustain the power of just conversation.

“Prime Minster”
There was standing room only at the Performing Arts Center for a showing of “Prime Minister,” a documentary on Jacinda Ardern, former New Zealand PM. The film, directed by Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe, received a rousing standing ovation. “It was the best MVFF screening ever,” someone said. The reason: The film captures Arden’s tenure and surprise election at 37 as PM — her decriminalization of abortion, banning assault weapons, significantly limiting the impact of COVID, the horrific assault on a mosque in Christchurch, killing 51 people — and she had a baby. Commenting after in person, in a warm conversation moderated by director Dawn Porter, Ardern noted, paraphrasing: If we remain curious, passionate, and human in the face of political crises, we will do the right thing.

“A Man With Sole”
In “A Man With Sole,” seasonal Islander Kenneth Cole says, “Mental health is the oldest and arguably the newest pandemic and public health crisis that we are confounded by and trying to deal with. We are all, in some ways, struggling with this crisis.” Cole has literally changed the world by rebranding how people pay attention to and deal with social crises — from the 2005 “We All Have AIDS” campaign to the mental health crisis today. “A Man With Sole,” a film directed by Dori Berinstein, speaks to the mental health crisis, and to Kenneth Cole Productions’ partnership with the Mental Health Coalition. If you missed this important film last weekend, you are in luck, because the film will be screened here again this summer, on July 19.

“On Healing Land, Birds Perch”
South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan stands in a road with a gun to the head of a wincing North Vietnamese Captain Nguyen Van Lem in a checkered shirt. The black-and-white photo of an execution by Eddie Adams of the Associated Press captured the nation, and altered the course of the Vietnam War. Director Naja Pham Lockwood documents the trajectory of that bullet through their descendants. Says Lockwood that the documentary “is not about reopening wounds. It is about understanding, healing, reconciliation, and the universality of refugee experiences.”