Wade in the Water, Children is a poignant compilation of unscripted videos shot almost exclusively by the 6th-8th grade documentary film students from The Singleton Charter School at the local YMCA in Central City, New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Filmmakers Gabriel Nussbaum and Elizabeth Wood did not at first set out to make a full length feature. They travelled to New Orleans from New York City to bring free arts programs to students in need, gave each child in their film class a video camera, and told them to go home and document their day to day lives. Only then did the film start to take shape.
The film is unscripted, uncensored, and raw. It’s told on the students own terms, in their own words. Students show their dilapidated homes that have been ravaged by Katrina, pictures of deceased loved ones, and sing songs in class about how President Bush doesn’t care to help them with a nonchalance that surprises and grips the viewer. Many children did not know the whereabouts of family members for days after the storm. One student most notably holds a photograph of himself and his mother up to the screen and explains: “I never met her, she’s deceased right now.”
At the beginning of the film, there is a montage of students introducing themselves, with a voiceover of their classmates discussing what they think each student will grow up to be. The most common choices were: “comedian, teacher, lawyer, doctor, or model.”
The film shows that Central City was a notoriously violent neighborhood before Katrina, as Ms. Cook states, head teacher at the YMCA who was forced to live in part of an office at the school when her home was abolished, “This [storm] just made it worse.”
There is a strong sense of community that comes across, as evidenced by candid interviews with local residents, talking about how when the storm hit, they helped evacuate neighbors. The YMCA came into the neighborhood asking around for local children, and took in every child in need whose school had been destroyed by the hurricane.
These students are exposed at a very young age to neighborhood violence, weapons (a brother of a 13 year old female student is shown in his bedroom cleaning his multiple guns), use harsh language, and are confronted early on with the reality of death. One student tells the filmmakers that his cousin was: “shot up and thrown in a garbage can when he was thirteen, I was eleven,” for being in the wrong neighborhood. Some adults interviewed reveal that they’ve been mentally affected by the storm, one woman admits she’d returned to drinking after abstaining for many years.
There is an additional section that takes place two years later, in 2008. Ms. Cook’s house has since been rebuilt and she was able to move back in, but many of the students show that their towns are still run down, feeling the after-effects of Katrina.
DVD Bonus Features
A “where are they now” short which shows the same group of students graduating high school in 2010. Most of the students have graduated, and they talk about the ways in which the film had a positive effect on their lives. One student was unable to be interviewed as he was incarcerated but determined to get his GED. Also a few interviews from news programs where the students and filmmakers discuss the reception the film had at the time of its’ release, namely the fact that the theaters had to turn away about 20-30 people, and at least that many chose to stand during the screening.
An extended scene entitled “A Shakedown Party in Class” which shows the students singing: “F*ck Katrina, we’re all on FEMA.” Also a moving theatrical trailer.
"Wade in the Water, Children " is on sale August 24, 2010 and is not rated. Documentary. Directed by Elizabeth Wood, Gabriel Nussbaum , Gary Halvorson. Starring Avis Brock , Barbara Cook, Jonathon Brookin, Rose Gillam , Willie Batiste.
