The director of INFORMANT profiles the efforts of once wrongly imprisoned men to exonerate other innocent men.
Having themselves experienced the nightmare of incarceration for crimes they didn’t commit, and the joy of finally being vindicated, the subjects of Jamie Meltzer’s film have banded together to help others in similar straits. Going by the film’s titular name, a group of exonerated African-American men form a detective agency, funneling their hard-fought experiences in the criminal justice system to investigate, and hopefully solve, other cases of wrongful conviction. Beyond the challenge of their first case – overturning a 75-year sentence for a $618 theft – the men have to learn how to do their new jobs and to adjust to life on the outside.
The filmmakers are in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign for production and post-production financing. They’ve raised nearly 40% of their $30,000 goal, and have two weeks left to make up the rest. To keep updated on the project, check out its website.
Meltzer’s previous film, profiling the activist turned FBI informant Brandon Darby, demonstrated the filmmaker’s ability to tackle a controversial subject in an original and engaging manner, and this project shows the same promise. Wrongful imprisonment is a not-uncommon documentary topic, but his subjects’ backgrounds bring a personal investment to their mission, and their creative approach to the issue – setting up an agency – suggests a welcome, and even potentially lighter, departure from what could otherwise be a dour focus on crime, punishment, and an imperfect system. I’m a little wary of how Meltzer might be planning to use re-enactments, given the curious way he employed the technique in his previous film, and I’m also curious about what kind of genuine progress his subjects can make on their cases, given the slow wheels of the judicial system – and how much Meltzer and his team can capture to result in a satisfying film – but I have high hopes.
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