Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8: BAYOU BLUE
Alix Lambert and David McMahon’s serial killer investigation debuted at IDFA in 2011. It went on to screen at New Orleans, BFI London, and Poland’s American film fest, among others.
Between 1997 and 2006, Ronald Dominique raped and murdered more than twenty men in Louisiana. Most of his victims were African American, gay, and poor, marginalized men who rarely commanded the attention of either law enforcement or the media – unless they themselves were breaking the law – enabling Dominique to continue his killing spree. Exacerbating this bias was the chaos that ensued due to Hurricane Katrina, straining already overtaxed resources in the state. Lambert and McMahon return with local police to the scenes of Dominique’s crimes to reconstruct the case, interview family members about the victims, and question how and why issues of race, regionalism, homophobia, and class prevented what seems to have had the sensationalistic potential to captivate a national audience – possibly enabling Dominique’s apprehension far earlier – from being more than a small, local concern.
what (not) to doc 