  |
TROOP 1500
Read
Director's Statement
Orlando Sentinel
Girls Scouts behind bars? Be prepared for an unorthodox and transforming story that follows the girls of Austin Texas Troop 1500. Well-versed in the "Be Prepared" mantra of the Girl Scouts, spunky troop leader Julia Cuba guides her girl scouts into the concrete jungle in which their mothers live. The daughters must continually adapt to new emotional territory, and the mothers find that their best intentions are too often trumped by their weaknesses. With its beautiful camerawork and skillful use of videotaped interviews conducted by the daughters and their moms, TROOP 1500 is a candid, moving look at families torn apart by crime but trying to relate beyond prison walls.
Boston Globe
"compelling ... powerful ... dauntingly complex."
"O", The Oprah Magazine
"heartwarming and heartwrenching, the film shines a light on an ignored segment of society and considers how America can prevent the children of the incarcerated from feeling punished themselves.
The Chicago Reader
"Inspiring and compelling, TROOP 1500 steers clear of sentimentality and drives home the magnitude of the difficulty of breaking the cycle of crime."
Austin-American Statesman Editorial
"extraordinary, don't miss it!"
Newsweek
March 18, 2005
Lorraine Ali
"Troop 1500" directed by Ellen
Spiro, is another documentary about kids on the brink. It focuses on a
Girl Scout troop in Texas whose frequent field trips are visits to the
local prison to see their mothers. The girls were all given cameras to
conduct interviews on their own: "Mom, why did yo do it?" (Note
to Spiro, if this gets picked up ask Kleenex to sponsor it.)
 Variety
March, 2005
Ronnie Scheib
Ellen Spiro's surprisingly sprightly
documentary concerns a Texas Girl Scout troop whose mandate is "to strengthen
the bond between girls and their incarcerated mothers in order to break
the cycle of crime." While empathetic to their subjects' plight (pic follows
five women and seven girls), and in tune with the social experiment the
troop represents (the girls are regularly brought to prison in structured
encounters), filmmakers remain aware of the ironies of juxtaposing jail
time and brownie points. Pic's calm evenhandedness incorporates video-within-video
experimentation and deliciously campy interpolated snippets of vintage
Girl Scout newsreels. [read full article]
Austin American Statesman Film Review
March 16, 2005
Chris Garcia
Once a month members of Girl Scout Troop
1500, based in Austin, scrabble into a white van and tool 90 minutes to
Hilltop Prison in Gatesville. Along the way the children play games, chatter,
giggle; sometimes they just gaze out the window and think. They are en
route to visit their mothers, convicted criminals - drugs, murder, stealing,
assault - whose bad choices have rent their families, leaving their daughters
in the hands of relatives. Filmmakers Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein
spent two years with the coltish girls before they flipped on their cameras
to record these heartbreaking reunions - complicated combustions of emotion,
sharing, life lessons and pizza. Spiro and Bernstein's genius was to equip
the girls with video cameras and let child interview mother and vice-versa
for unvarnished expressions of guilt, hope and promises. While the visits
appear festive, filled with creative projects and bonding rituals, the
inevitable separation is wrenching drama, as daughter is pulled, again,
from mother. This deceptively simple documentary invokes a range of social
issues and a world where individual futures are that much more precious
for being so precarious.
People's Weekly World Newspaper
March, 2005
Women Making Movies
Moving
audiences to laughter and tears at a sneak peek screening at the New York
MoMA Documentary Fortnight exhibition in February, this extraordinary
documentary was a labor of love for veteran filmmakers Spiro and Bernstein.
The directors volunteered with the troop for two years, then began filming
monthly meetings at the Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas, as well as
capturing scenes in the girls¹ homes to explore the painful context of
broken families. [read
full article].
Austin Film Society
Chale Nafus
New
Spiro Feature Doc Goes Beyond Bars with the Girl Scouts
One traditional goal
of the Girl Scouts - to teach survival skills in the wilderness - has
been creatively updated to teach survival in the "wilderness" of contemporary
urban society. [read
full article]
Austin American Statesman
March 11, 2005
Editorial Board
Incarcerated and a Girl Scout mom
You might not expect a film about Girl
Scouts to debut at the edgy South by Southwest Film Festival that begins
today. But then you might not expect that the Girl Scouts have gone to
prison - so to speak. [read full article]
Austin Chronicle
March 11, 2005
Belinda Acosta
The Redeemers
Ellen Spiro on 'Troop 1500,' her story of Girl Scouts and the incarcerated
mothers who love them.
Hilltop
is about an hour from Austin in Gatesville. It's where Austin-based filmmaker
Ellen Spiro of Mobilus Media (Atomic Ed and the Black Hole) spent time
over a two-year period making her latest documentary, Troop 1500.
[read full article]
Florida Film Festival
Well-versed
in the "Be
Prepared" mantra of the Girl Scouts, spunky troop leader Julia Cuba
guides her charges Jasmine, Caitlin, Mikaela, Julia, Jessica, and Jessica
into the concrete jungle in which their mothers live. Vintage footage
brilliantly captures the woody wilderness normally associated with scouting,
but it has nothing on the poignant wilderness faced by the troop members
as they struggle to connect with their incarcerated mothers. The daughters
must continually adapt to new emotional territory, and the mothers find
that their best intentions are too often trumped by their weaknesses.
With its beautiful camerawork and skillful use of videotaped interviews
conducted by the daughters and their moms, TROOP 1500 is a candid, moving
look at families torn apart by crime but trying to relate beyond and behind
prison walls.
University of Texas
Their mothers may be convicted prostitutes, thieves, murderers and drug
dealers, but the girls of Girl Scout Troop 1500 want to be doctors, lawyers,
veterinarians, social workers and marine biologists. [read
full article]
ARE THE KIDS ALRIGHT?
Houston
Chronicle
Mike McDaniel
June 24, 2004
You
think you have troubles? Imagine what it would be like to have a child
who wants to kill himself. Imagine being so afraid of your mentally unstable
son that you no longer want him living in your house. [read
full article]
Austin
Chronicle
Anne S. Lewis
Jeremy's
biological mom was bad news. She had her own demons, depression, drug
abuse, and trouble with the law. But notwithstanding her genetic imprint,
she's essentially irrelevant to her son these days, because no one has
seen her for years. [read full article]
ATOMIC ED & the Black Hole
HBO
Still Kicking, Still Laughing
HBO caught up with "Atomic
Ed and the Black Hole" director Ellen Spiro to talk about how she
became involved in this project and how she feels about getting older,
among other things. [read
full article]
San Francisco Examiner
Jeffrey Anderson
"My favorite short film in the [festival] was "Atomic Ed and the Black
Hole," about a former bomb maker who now runs a shop selling (or not selling,
as the case may be) used doodads from the nuclear age. "
Hollywood
Boulevard.com
"How
do you live with the fact that you helped build something that killed
millions of people within seconds and thousands (millions?) more over
the next fifty years? That's the rather lofty question that this documentary
tries to answer by documenting the life of Atomic Ed, an old man in Los
Alamos, NM who used to work at the the Los Alamos National laboratory.
Now he collects bits and pieces from the lab (only the non-radioactive
ones, of course) and keeps them in his shop (The Black Hole) to remind
him and the world of something that should never happen again. Some of
the things, though, he won't sell because he plans on opening a museum
to cut through all of the Big Science ("with a capital B and a capital
S" as one of the people at the actual Los Alamos museum says) behind what
happened back in the 40s when those bombs were dropped.
But remember, this is a comedy! Yes, even with that question, this is
very funny. This guy and his friends are a little crazy, and they seem
to know it. That's what makes this totally celebratory instead of it poking
fun at the guy."
ROAM
SWEET HOME
The Hollywood Reporter
Marilyn Moss
August 28, 1997
"There are a lots of ways the media - mass or otherwise - has hit the
road: There were Steinbeck's Depression-age "Grape" roadies, Kerouac's
angst-filled, hipster roadies, even Willie Nelson's country road songs.
Now we have filmmaker (and road traveler) Ellen Spiro's geriatric roadies
- folks in their later years who've retired to their RVs and, yes, hit
the road.
This humorous documentary on the travels of the elderly is part poetry
and part mobile experience. These self-proclaimed "Geritol gypsies" love
the feel of freedom even if they're considered anomalies by any conventional
standard.
But "Roam" is also a poem dedicated to words on the road. Narrated by
Spiro's dog, Sam, the wisdom penned in "oldest Living Confederate Widow
Tells All" comes bouncing to life. "Roam" is a captivating tale that rediscovers
America - and life in the not-so-very-fast-lane."
People
Magazine
August 25, 1997
"This
leisurely documentary tracks so-called Geritol gypsies, retirees who wander
America in vintage trailers. Filmmaker Ellen Spiro, and RVer herself,
has a special affinity for these vagabonds. Her efforts are supported
by the sage narration of her dog Sam (since deceased), who had ghostwriting
help from novelist Allan Gurganus. In case the RV life doesn't seem unfettered
enough, we alos meet a 66-year-old woman who's walking across the country.
Grade: A"
Austin
Chronicle
Jerry Johnson
November 10, 1997
"Here
is a filmmaker who is not merely in touch with her work -- she lives her
work. The documentary, Roam Sweet Home, is a meandering and intensely
poetic look at what some call "the Geritol Gypsies," a loosely connected
group of senior citizens who have abandoned the safe mores of a settle-down
retirement to roam the Southwest in RVs (usually Airstreams) insearch
of new adventuress and experiences."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE
National
Media Owl Awards
Gene Siskel
From
1984 to 1998, the Owl Awards recognized outstanding films, videos, and
television programs about aging, the elderly, and the issues that concern
them. The awards also encouraged productions that broke down the traditional
stereotypes of aging.
"There ís a wild sense of discovery at every turn ... visually striking
and deeply moving."
- Gene Siskel, National Media Owl Awards May, 1997
Dog
World Magazine
"For
those of us with a severe case of wanderlust but the responsibilities
of a 9-to-5 job, Roam Sweet Home provides an astute glimpse into non-sedentary
lifestyles, complete with eloquent narration by Spiro1s dog Sam. Spiro
and Sam find an unforgettable band of self-described "geritol gypsies"< senior citizens who retire on the road. The film expresses a deep love
of canine companionship and shows how having a dog on the road provides
freedom and peace of mind."
Boston
Globe
"An entertaining and bizarre film."
Hybrid
Magazine
"A
great and a serious story filled with laughs."
|
