Jane Gillooly is a director, producer, writer, and editor. A Guggenheim fellow, Gillooly is a nonfiction and narrative filmmaker committed to the art of narrative. Her work has screened at museums and festivals internationally, including Lincoln Center, Doc Aviv, Mostra Brazil, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival, the Contemporary Film Festival of Mexico City, and the Sydney Film Festival.
“Where the Pavement Ends” will screen at the 2019 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival on April 4.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
JG: “Where the Pavement Ends” is an impressionistic meditation on the persistence of racial injustice.
Fifty years ago, a barricade stood a few miles from the road where Michael Brown was shot by a Ferguson police officer in 2014 where his corpse lay for hours in the Missouri sun. The barricade was erected to prevent traffic from flowing between the then all-white town of Ferguson and the all-black town of Kinloch. Beginning with a 1960s roadblock that divided Ferguson from Kinloch, the film depicts a micro-history of race relations in America.
“Where the Pavement Ends” listens to the recollections of inhabitants of both towns about the impact of the barricade and the effort to have it removed after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. The relationship between blacks and whites in the region reached a climax before the world’s eyes with the death of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed. The film speaks to the lingering effects of historical injustices on the present.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
JG: I grew up in Ferguson, Missouri. As a child, I was taken on a memorial march for Martin Luther King, Jr. a few days after his assassination. The march was organized by the neighboring town of Kinloch, which was a segregated black town, isolated from the white suburbs surrounding it. The route was planned so that the march crossed the barricade between all-white Ferguson and Kinloch.
Participating in the march as a nine-year-old and crossing the town line at the site of the barricade was the first politically transgressive act I was to witness in my life. The memory of this event stayed with me.
Strangely, I had begun a treatment for a short film about this experience a few years before Michael Brown was shot. His murder magnified the importance of how past injustices prefigure those of today.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
JG: I want the audience to be thinking about where they grew up. Divided communities exist all over the United States, and I am certain there are moments and reflections about the persistence of racial injustice in this film that will feel familiar. To quote Julia Howard in the film, “Why should that be? Why can’t we straighten this out? What are we waiting for?”
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
JG: We did not have the time and resources necessary to fully describe a comprehensive picture of Kinloch, Missouri. In the 1950s and 1960s, Kinloch was the largest all-black, politically incorporated, self-governing town in America. Activist Dick Gregory, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, actress Jenifer Lewis, and Silicon Valley technology pioneer Roy Clay, Sr., to name a few, are from Kinloch. Most of this historic town had already begun to be erased when we began shooting. I wish we could have paid deeper homage to it.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
JG: I am fortunate to be in a professional teaching position that allows me occasional paid sabbaticals, some research funds, and technical support. This is not my first film, and over the years I’ve accumulated much of my own production gear and have a well-equipped edit room.
I did receive grants to pay out of pocket expenses, as well as finishing funds and some funds to pay the devoted collaborators, although the actual dollar amount was not enough to properly pay anyone involved. We all wore a lot of hats.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
JG: I did not go to film school. I had an art studio practice, and I was working with photography and text and exploring performance monologue. I wanted to work more expansively and creatively with narrative. I have memories of walking outdoors into the sunlight from a dark cinema, my head swirling with images and associations. I like to think that some of my work is impactful in that same way.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
JG: The best advice was that as an artist, you can’t be too confident. The worst advice was that I was too confident.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
JG: Find people you love to work with. Understand and respect the work of your peers. Trust them. Pay them back.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
JG: This is an impossible question. I can only say I absolutely do not have only one favorite. I am drawn to, informed by, and inspired by, in no particular order, Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” Trinh T. Minh-ha’s “Reassemblage,” Eve Sussman’s “whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir,” Laura Poitras’ “The Oath,” Deborah Stratman’s “The Illinois Parables” and “O’er the Land,” Maya Deren’s “At Land,” Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone,” and Jane Campion’s “The Piano.”
Do you ask men this question? Just curious. [Note: We don’t interview men.]
W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
JG: In my immediate world, which is far from Hollywood, I have not noticed many differences. Honestly, and with all due respect, women are still not given a platform nearly as often as they are asked to respond to questions like this. I look forward to reading more feature articles about women directors instead of reading the responses to surveys women are asked to answer. You are asking us to do the work for you.
