Travis Wilkerson
2021
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Travis Wilkerson
Travis Wilkerson
“In 1946, my great-grandfather murdered a black man named Bill Spann and got away with it.” So begins Travis Wilkerson’s critically acclaimed documentary, DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN?, which takes us on a journey through the American South to uncover the truth behind a horrific incident and the societal mores that allowed it to happen. Acting as narrator and guide, Wilkerson spins a strange, frightening tale, incorporating scenes from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the music of Janelle Monáe and Phil Ochs, and the story of Rosa Parks’ investigation into the Recy Taylor case, as well as his own family history, for a gripping investigation into our collective past and its echoes into the present day.
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Nuclear Family
Travis Wilkerson, Erin Wilkerson
A family trip across the American West becomes an essay film about nuclear threats past and present. The apocalypse is omnipresent, and the journey shows that destruction has long since become inscribed into the landscape and history of the country.
Nuclear Family
Far from Afghanistan
Travis Wilkerson, Soon-Mi Yoo
Taking inspiration from the collaborative 1967 militant anthology film Far from Vietnam, five of the boldest and most prominent American militant filmmakers unite to create this searing (and seething) omnibus work, employing a variety of approaches to reveal the hidden costs of the United States' (and Canada's) most expensive and longest-running war. (TIFF)
Far from Afghanistan
Los Angeles Red Squad: The Communist Situation in California
Travis Wilkerson
The opening, Los Angeles today, at dusk. In this first instalment of a series about the police in the United States, Travis Wilkerson seeks to trace the early activities of the Red Squad section of the municipal police, under the zealous tutelage of its figurehead in the 1920s and 30s, William “Red” Hynes. Of him, we only see a face and a gesture, revolver pointed at the person photographing him. His mission? To track down, flush out and threaten communist activists. Infiltration and intimidation were the lot of this political militia purposely created to break any hint of social or political subversion.
Los Angeles Red Squad: The Communist Situation in California
Fragments of Dissolution
Travis Wilkerson
"...In the film, Wilkerson presents four interviewees. Two are widows whose family members (one husband, one son) were Afghan vets who committed suicide. The other two are women who lost family members because Detroit Edison turned off their electricity during the winter. Wilkerson does nothing to draw parallels between these two forms of injustice. Rather, by simply juxtaposing the women’s stories, we are able to see how systematic indifference to human life takes multiple forms, but comes back to the same root causes, and how we are indeed fighting the same war against the poor and disenfranchised at home and abroad – ici et ailleurs. – Michael Sicinski, Mubi Notebook.
Fragments of Dissolution
A Brief History of the Obliteration of Hope
Travis Wilkerson
A monument to the Tlatelolco student massacre of 1968 in Mexico City, ten days before the Olympics. Hundred of students were disappeared. A grotesque tradition - the complete physical obliteration of students organizing for progressive change - was hurled into motion. This film is nearly wordless. In place of words, the enactment of violence against the images themselves, in a stagger towards commensurate aesthetics.
A Brief History of the Obliteration of Hope
National Archive V.1
Travis Wilkerson
National Archive: V.1 uses archival U.S. military footage to depict a series of aerial attacks on Vietnamese sites. Simple and affecting, the work shares an affinity with Bruce Conners Crossroads by giving viewers time to contemplate the tragedy of war.
National Archive V.1
For Michael Brown
Travis Wilkerson
Out of respect for his parents' request, four and one half minutes of silence for Michael Brown Jr. One minute for each hour his body lay in the streets of Ferguson, MO after he was shot to death by Officer Darren Wilson. Please watch in darkness. Please watch in silence.
For Michael Brown
