Kimberly and Katrina: 3 Years Later
I abandoned plans to see Raphael Saadiq and Janelle Monae at the Highline Ballroom to see "Trouble the Water" at the IFC center tonight. Courtesy of Kimberly Rivers Roberts, I was ushered back into the storm's eye. The Ninth Ward resident filmed Hurricane Katrina's prelude, climax, and aftermath on her camcorder and provided comic and incisive color commentary while tending for her neighbors who, under similar financial constraints, couldn't evacuate the city. Biking to a corner store for neck bones before the storm, our composed documentarian expressed her intention to "show the world we had a world before the storm."
And she did. It's an amazing portrait of family. Kimberly's husband Scott, a scarred but serene-faced young man who gazes at his wife lovingly and supportingly throughout the film, is revealed to be the same young man Kimberly razored across the face in her late adolescence. Both of them former drug dealers, Kimberly and Scott, demonstrated a concern for their community not often mirrored by civic leaders.
It's not just her presence of mind and Scott's industriousness that impress but their tremendous empathy. As she explained later in the film's arc, as she rinses off a cut of meat in a family member's kitchen at her grandmother's funeral, Kimberly recognizes need having been so long in need. Orphaned along with her younger brother at 13, when their crack addicted mother succumbed to HIV/AIDS, Kimberly stole and sold drugs to care for her and her brother.
Friday is the third anniversary of Katrina and I don't know what to say but everyone needs to see what the Roberts family and established producer/filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl deal have filmed.
Tags: Film, Hurricane Katrina
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