24 minutes / Color
Closed Captioned
Release: 2017
Copyright: 2017
Long Story Short and Now he's out in public and everyone can see are included on one DVD.
A riveting polyphonic documentary, NOW HE'S OUT IN PUBLIC AND EVERYONE CAN SEE presents a fractured narrative about an unnamed man whose racial identity is continually redrawn and contested by clusters of impassioned narrators. This intricately-edited and deeply political essay film by artist Natalie Bookchin is composed of fragments of found online video diaries made in the early days of the Obama era, a period many believed would be "post-racial" but instead ushered in a new era of racial discord.
NOW HE'S OUT IN PUBLIC AND EVERYONE CAN SEE explores this new landscape, one where mass media is transformed into social media and where cascades of disinformation, rumors, and insinuations spread across global electronic networks. Newly adapted for the cinema by the artist based on her own multi-screen gallery installation that was exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and other museums, NOW HE'S OUT illustrates the way that, as truths and falsehoods become nearly impossible to distinguish, reality is splintered and recast through a myriad of interpretations and retellings.
"An absolutely staggering work of art. I watched it four times over… Then I went back the following week and watched it again. …A stunning reflection of a society that is grappling with the notion of African American men as threats; that there might be places where they should and shouldn't be."—Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times
"Ms. Bookchin's editing is inventive and revealing. Every time a word or phrase common to all the diaries occurs, all the heads say it in unison, interrupting film's otherwise random-seeming this-speaker-then-that-speaker flow... You get a sense of the existence of a digitally connected community of suffering, one with a shared vocabulary and set of emotions."—Holland Cotter, The New York Times
Select Accolades
One black family's commitment to a quality education, from the pre-1965 time of segregation, through desegregation, and through the recent period of resegregation. **Winner, John E. O'Connor Film Award, American Historical Association**
Chea Prince | 2003 | 56 minutes | Color | English
Over 100 people at homeless shelters, food banks, and job training centers discuss their experiences of poverty.
Natalie Bookchin | 2016 | 45 minutes | Color | English | Closed Captioned
Oscar-shortlist selection, this is the definitive account of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage.
Nancy Buirski | 2012 | 77 minutes | Color | English
