"HOME": First New Orleans Speaks. Then Tribeca.

Don’t you love it when the judges agree with you?
Local filmmaker Matt Faust’s emotionally jarring short “Home” was named the best short documentary at this month’s New York’s prestigious Tribeca Film Festival! The judges described the film this way: It tells a post-Hurricane Katrina story in a new, inventive and poignant way.

We heard the easygoing filmmaker speak at last year’s New Orleans Speaks event. Here you can listen to Matt talk about the making of the film — a hauntingly beautiful homage to the Chalmette home he grew up in, its flooding in Katrina and subsequent tragically mistaken demolition. In a recent interview with The Independent Magazine, Faust describes this completely preventable layer of misfortune:
“About a year after the storm, my parents had finished having the house gutted (which means hauling out all of the mud, grass, furniture, trash, dead animals, etc. and stripping the interior down to studs and slab) and were on their way to rebuilding it when the house was completely torn down without our knowledge or consent. I can’t give you a definitive answer as to why this happened, but our situation is not unique and there are strong suggestions that point to greed and unscrupulous behavior as the culprit. It’s really sad on so many levels, especially since my grandparents literally built that house with their own hands.”
Our own Karen Gadbois got to know Faust through the works she does to prevent such tragic demolitions.
I believe this short continues to garner awards because it speaks to the universal message of change and loss, and of course to the intimate relationships we have with the bricks and mortar backdrops of our lives.

Tags: film, new orleans speaks, home, matt faust

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"HOME": First New Orleans Speaks. Then Tribeca.