Featured Member Profile

An African-American man is President of the United States. Monday, February 1st, marks the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro “sit-in”, when four black college students initiated a peaceful protest of segregation at Woolworth’s lunch counter in North Carolina. To many, America seems to have come a long way, but conversations about race should, and must, continue. This is the belief of Emmy Award-winning director Eric Paul Fournier, who calls racism an “unhealed wound”, and who, along with Anna Kauffman, is putting the finishing touches on the documentary film Race to the White House, which follows Barack Obama’s presidential campaign from its inception through Inauguration Day. They recently described to me the making of and impetus behind their film, a fiscally-sponsored project of Fractured Atlas.

Would you please describe your film, Race to the White House? What is it about and how did it come to be?

Race to the White House (a working title) was originally based on the questions “is America ready to elect a black president?” — hoping Barack Obama’s candidacy would spark a national dialogue and bring Americans’ often hidden racial attitudes out into the open — and “would his campaign be an agent for real social change in these attitudes?”

Obviously we know the answer to at least the first question, but with the “post-racial society” euphoria of the inauguration fading quickly; the current dialogue becoming more and more “coded” and often rancorous in the months since President Obama’s swearing in; with old Jim Crow-era iconography, slogans and racial enmity appearing during the summer of 2009’s “tea parties”; with accusations from voices on the right, such as from Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch, that Obama himself is a “racist”; to most recently the “prayers” from the religious far right for Obama’s children to become “fatherless”, we feel that this dialogue is needed now more than ever.

Former Mississippi governor Ray Mabus, Max Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy stumping for Obama.

We followed the campaign from state to state, starting with Obama’s announcement of his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, in 2007, through the primary season, beginning with his surprise win over Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses and up to his nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. We continued on through the general election and were there for an his acceptance speech in Chicago’s Grant Park and his inauguration in Washington D.C. All the while we were speaking with Civil Rights activists, attorneys, elected officials, scholars, and everyday constituents.

Race to the White House is not a traditional “campaign” film like The War Room, about Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, or even Amy Rice’s recent Obama documentary, By the People. We started out wanting to create a film like none of the others. With the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, we just don’t think these types of films provide any new insight or can have any real lasting impact.

We took the approach that looks at the historical context and examines what the election meant to people from all walks of life. Our film is intended to bring Americans’ attitudes out into the open, in an attempt to stimulate a greater dialogue about sensitive racial subjects, and to facilitate a deeper understanding of where we are as a country, more than fifty years after the start of the Civil Rights movement. We believe this will provide a stronger, more meaningful film.

What time and commitment has gone into the making of the film?

We started out in February of 2007 in Springfield and filmed for two years all across the nation. We have continued to edit and film through Obama’s first year in office and are now at the onset of our primary push to finish the edit. We raised about $200,000 from various foundations, while the director and I (Anna) have another $300,000 personally invested into the production. It’s been a three-year effort and a very expensive journey to date.

Could you describe a segment of the film that is particularly notable or memorable to you?

One of the most poignant moments was in Mississippi on the day of the state’s primary election there, where we followed a man by the name of Vernon Dhamer, Jr., as he told us about his family history. He still lives on the land that had once been the plantation where his great-great-grandmother was enslaved. His family now owns the land, as it had been bequeathed to them from their slave master after the Civil War. The plantation owner had fathered children by his slave mistress, Vernon’s great-great-grandmother.

As we talked with Vernon on the way to the polls, he also told us the story of his father, who was killed in a fire bombing of the family house and business by the Ku Klux Klan during the Civil Rights Movement. His father had been an active leader of the local NAACP, fighting the “poll tax” and helping poor African Americans in his home town register to vote. His father’s dying words to his four sons were, “Vote. If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” It seemed that the great arc of history was laid out before us, from slavery to the Civil War to the savage violence of the Civil Rights Movement. And here was Vernon, some 40 years later, going to vote for a man that looks like him to be elected to America’s highest office.

What stage is Race to the White House at now?

We are in a fund-raising round. We are seeking $150,000 in finishing funds to do some final “pick-up” filming, and then we start post-production in earnest.

How has your Fractured Atlas membership benefited your project?

Through fiscal sponsorship, Fractured Atlas allows our financial donors to receive tax benefits while supporting our efforts. Once we get through our last round of fund-raising, we’ll take further advantage by purchasing errors & omissions insurance through FA.

Who or what have been your biggest influences?

Anyone who tells a good story. Certainly David and Albert Maysles — Eric loves their film Salesman — and D.A. Pennebacker, of course. These guys were the pro-generators of cinéma vérité. Too many still photographers and photo-journalists to mention, all storytellers themselves. There are quite a few really good documentary filmmakers out there. Eric recently watched a film called Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus that has him thinking about a new language for documentary storytelling. He recommends it.

What has been your greatest success to date?

I (Anna) am just getting started as a filmmaker, but for Eric it would have to be his film from 2001, Of Civil Wrongs & Rights, for which he won two Emmy® Awards, one for directing and one for editing for its national POV/PBS broadcast.

Anna Kauffman with Barack Obama

Is there any advice that you would give to a documentary filmmaker about to embark on their first project?

If you’ve got a great story and access and the ability to tell it… go for it. But you have to be prepared to go “all in”. Making a documentary on any scale is not for the faint of heart.

What’s next on your professional horizon?

Eric has another documentary, Guitar Man, already in production. Once these two documentaries are complete, we will take a break. Eric will take some time to develop his first feature narrative film, and I might have the time to read a book or two.

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See more clips of “Race to the White House” at the film’s website: http://racetowhitehousemovie.com.