Film Series: Herman’s House & Desert Runners
The Weekend Film Series, presented by Bermuda Docs and the BUEI, will feature a doubleheader of award-winning documentary films on Sunday November 17.
Herman’s House, winner of the Best Documentary award at the Harlem International Film Festival, will screen at 3 p.m., while Desert Runners – winner of Audience Awards at both the Vancouver and Hamptons film festivals – will screen at 5.15 p.m.
“Herman’s House” official trailer:
Herman’s House tells the story of Herman Wallace, one of the ‘Angola 3’ whose case was taken up by Amnesty International.
Wallace died of cancer on October 4 just three days after a federal judge ordered him freed on the grounds that his original indictment in the killing of a prison guard was unconstitutional. He had lived in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for 41 years.
Years passed with one day much like the next until Wallace received a perspective-shifting letter from art student Jackie Sumell, who posed a provocative question: “What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?”
Their collaboration created a revelatory art installation—featuring a full-scale wooden model of Herman’s cell and detailed plans of his dream home—and has brought thousands of gallery visitors around the world face-to-face with the harsh realities of the American prison system.
“Desert Runners” official trailer:
This film explores the injustice of solitary confinement and the transformative power of art as an unlikely friendship develops between a New York-born artist and one of America’s most famous prison inmates.
Desert Runners tells the story of four athletes who compete in the Four Deserts Ultra Marathon Series. Each race is 250 kilometres over some of the world’s most extreme and inhospitable terrain – the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Gobi Desert in China, the Sahara Desert in Egypt, and the Antarctic.
The four amateur athletes profiled must cross those brutal landscapes while carrying everything they need to survive – clothes, food, emergency medical supplies, a sleeping bag – in a 20-pound backpack.
For former British military man Tremaine, Australian law student Samantha, former American professional baseball player Ricky and middle-aged Irish businessman Dave, the series is the ultimate challenge as it pushes their bodies, hearts and spirits through a variety of external and internal obstacles.
Not everyone will finish. People get hurt, tragedy strikes. Ultimately, the goal is to cross the finish line – forever changed from the inside out.
The ‘Weekend Film Series’, sponsored by Gosling’s, is a joint production of Bermuda Documentary Film Festival director Duncan Hall and the BUEI. Tickets are on sale now at the Oceans Gift Shop at the BUEI, or by calling 294-0204.
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