Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Jessie Deeter— “A Revolution in Four Seasons”
Jessie Deeter’s producing and directing credits include “Spark: A Burning Man Story,” which debuted at SXSW in 2013 and “Death By Fire,” which opened PBS’s “Frontline” season in 2010. Deeter is the producer of “Who Killed The Electric Car?” and “Revenge of the Electric Car,” which aired on the PBS series “Independent Lens” after its Tribeca premiere in 2011. Deeter also produced on Alex Gibney’s “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine.” (Press materials)
“A Revolution in Four Seasons” will premiere at the 2016 Hot Docs Film Festival on May 1.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
JD: Emna Ben Jemaa, one of the subjects of our documentary, says, “Everyone dreams of a democracy, of a better tomorrow.” Our story launches with that basic and idealistic concept. One country, two women, each with her own notion of what that dream of democracy should be.
“A Revolution in Four Seasons” is the story of what happens after the revolution. Revolution is just the first step of the revolutionary process. It‘s not a quick, exciting episode and then it’s over. We wondered what happens after you have a revolution in a country. What could democracy mean in a land that has never had it? What would be the role of the Islamists, persecuted for so many years under the old authoritarian, Euro-centric, regime? Would the freedoms and rights of women be protected?
When we began filming I imagined a relatively vertical climb up and out of the mire of dictatorship, into the blissfully perfect spring of Democracy with a capital “D.” Maybe I wasn’t that naïve, but I was that hopeful, as were many Tunisians. But the story turned out to be much more complicated and difficult, more alive, sad, and real than what everyone initially hoped for.
Our film is the story of what happens when the ideals clash with reality. We wanted to illustrate Tunisia’s story primarily through the eyes of two women in the thick of fighting for their future. We show the hard lessons and growth they each experience through the course of the four years that we follow them. Jawhara and Emna, like all Tunisians, have to grow up and face what it actually means to try to create a democracy in a country that has never had it, as well as what it really means to go from being young women with the world open to them, to married and then working mothers with two young daughters whose future is very much at stake.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
JD: My love for and knowledge of the MENA region goes back to my time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco in 1994 to 1996, when my husband, then best friend, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia. We both speak French and Arabic, and I was the first person in UC Berkeley’s journalism program to get a second Master’s degree with a Middle East focus.
This film began when I was living abroad with my family in 2010 and 2011 as a Fulbright Scholar, researching a film about women and food. When the people of Tunisia, the country we lived in that seemed least likely to spark a revolution, kicked out President Ben Ali, I knew that the world would never be the same. It was the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin wall, and as a journalist and documentary filmmaker, I knew I wanted to find a way to tell the story. I was especially interested in looking at what happens after a revolution. My Tunisian-American filmmaking colleague, Sara Maamouri, and I began exploring.
I knew that we had the answer to the question our documentary guru, Jon Else, encourages filmmakers to ask about any new documentary project: why us? Why were we the people who needed to tell this story? As two women, one Tunisian, and one American, I immediately felt that we brought a unique and invaluable perspective to the project. Sara knew firsthand what her people were experiencing, and she could help me understand the nuances that I might miss.
Sara and I soon met two women on opposite sides of the political spectrum whom we thought were exceptional representatives of what their country was facing. Emna Ben Jemaa is a staunchly secular journalist/blogger and heroine of the Revolution. Jawhara Ettis is an Islamist shepherdess and Shakespeare-quoting English professor who — as it turns out — was elected to the first Parliament after the Revolution, and in charge of writing Tunisia’s new constitution.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
JD: We want people to leave the theater in awe of what the Tunisian people have accomplished against all odds, rooting for their future success. We want people to leave the theater with a new appreciation for the broad political diversity within Muslim countries, and for the strong parallels with our own lives and dreams. We want people to leave the theater thinking that what unites Emna and Jawhara is stronger than what divides them.
We hope that all audiences walk out feeling like they just experienced an incredible journey through the eyes of two women they can’t help but fall in love with because of their strength, vulnerability, wisdom, and drive.
We hope that Americans and other non-Islamic audiences also walk away surprised especially by Jawhara, her strength, and the way that her story subverts stereotypes of veiled Islamic women. Most Americans seem to think that women in this part of the world are relegated to conservative,traditional community roles, but they actually have great influence building and driving culture. Ironically, this is not always the case here in America.
I hope that Tunisians of all political denominations can empathize with a new and different perspective. If they can see more of the commonalities between our two central women rather than their differences, that would make me happy. I think that Tunisians can get discouraged by the democratic process, which I completely understand. But I would hope this film helps at least some of them see and appreciate their country and its remarkable achievements from a new perspective. It supposedly takes 15 to 20 years for a country to transform from a dictatorship to a democracy.
I would also like everyone to remember that in just five short years the Tunisian people have negotiated a peaceful transfer of power from a transitional government to a democratically elected coalition government. They drafted a new inclusive constitution that protects the freedom of assembly, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of religion, and upholds human rights and guarantees equality for men and women.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
JD: There were many challenges in the making of this film, as with all good documentaries. Although we were living in Tunisia when we began filming, we weren’t able to stay in Tunisia over the course of the film — so there was a lot of back and forth with a fair amount of gear that required some significant planning to transport.
Due to financial and other constraints, we were often operating with a very small crew, which was definitely an asset in terms of gaining the trust and access of our characters. My husband and I shot a fair amount of the footage ourselves. But when I agreed to shoot Jawhara’s wedding alone in the deep South, in the height of summer heat, with a gimpy tripod, trying to keep track of what was happening in my mediocre Arabic — I very much wished I’d had at least one other crew member with me.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
JD: We got this film made by by leveraging anything we had. I had already met my co-producer Sara in Tunisia the summer of 2011. We got a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant and did several news pieces for the PBS/Newshour, which helped cover travel costs and gave us a great excuse to talk to Tunisia’s current President, Beji Caid Essebsi.
There came a moment, however, in the spring of 2013, when we really needed to raise money. We launched a Kickstarter campaign that, which made it more difficult to keep the project under wraps due to its somewhat political nature. It turned out to be a great, community-building experience.
For the benefit of my fellow documentary filmmakers, I will note that we applied to traditional documentary grants along the way, and came distressingly close to receiving several — but we did not quite get there until the Women in Film grant we got last fall. There was some value in perfecting our treatment and our message, but I also think that we wasted valuable time and energy tweaking reels and written materials to meet each submission.
Back in 2010 I hired field producer, Joshua Riehl, for a film that ultimately became “Death By Fire.” Joshua sent one of our reels to Marcy Garriott, and we began a very close partnership when she decided to be our executive producer. She made it very clear that she was not just investing in the project; she wanted to be involved in all of the creative process, which she has done beautifully. Her insights, humor, patience, and excellent editorial and creative input have been more valuable than I would have imagined, when I thought that what I needed most were investment funds.
W&H: What’s the biggest misconception about you and your work?
JD: I don’t actually know what the biggest misconception about my work is when I’m out of the room. I can say that I came up through UC Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism and documentary filmmaking program whose first several jobs were on PBS and “Frontline” documentaries; this makes me something of an anomaly in an increasingly advocacy-leaning documentary world.
I think that having a point of view is totally fine, but I am not by training or by nature an evangelist, which has cost me opportunities at times. I think that not having a specific advocacy angle has made fundraising more challenging with “A Revolution in Four Seasons,” although it has made for what we believe is a more nuanced and unique film.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
JD: I’ve had some great advice along the way, but the best advice I can think of right now is that people only look at your work once, so no matter how excited you are by your rough cut, don’t show it to the wrong audience too early.
The worst advice I’ve ever had is that a “one man band” with fancy equipment can somehow replace a full professional crew.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
JD: You will learn from every situation, even situations in which you are pretty sure you are going to die (of starvation, humiliation, or as the target of a malevolent force) — perhaps especially in those situations.
My own best advice to upcoming filmmakers — that I wish I’d been told — is not to burn any bridges no matter how right you think you are or how much you feel you need to express yourself in the moment. The documentary world is very, very small, which is mostly a good thing.
Own your decisions.
Don’t worry about people thinking you are a bitch. Some of my favorite filmmakers are incredibly competent, ballsy women, who are, therefore, “bitches” in the eyes of some. I am one of them.
Treat all of your crew like the gems they are. Be honest and fair, and they will consistently over-perform. Bring tampons, painkillers, Band-Aids, and cash to every shoot. Your crew will love you, especially if your painkillers are strong. Feed your crew well.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
JD: There are many female documentary directors I would like to be when I grow up, but the film and the director that is my current favorite is Laura Poitras’s “Citizenfour.” I am a pretty unabashed fan of that film in almost every way. As a documentary student who had the good fortune to learn documentary filmmaking as objective, I greatly respect and admire Poitras’ journalism. But what really makes me revere her work in this film is craft an amazingly artistic story, from the opening scene of the film throughout. I love it that Poitras worked with a fiction film editor, as I think that this film has an intense pace and drama that are flavored by some of that world.
And I also think that she was only able to capture what she did with Snowden because she was alone. The nerves and presence of mind required to sit still and keep rolling silently is something that we all think we can do, but many aren’t capable of.
