Interview: Scott Hamilton Kennedy (The Garden)

[Editor’s note: This was originally published on 02.15.2009]

A powerful documentary about a 14 acre garden in Los Angeles that was at the center of a decade long dispute, The Garden details how a piece of land in South Central which was once considered a wasteland by the owner, good for garbage or warehouses by the city, but was turned into a lush garden by a mostly Latino community. After a dubious deal between the city and the owner, the gardeners are driven out but not without a fight which is at heart of this film by multi-tasking writer and director Scott Hamilton Kennedy. With a story as complex and rich as you would expect it in any piece of great literature full with noble characters, shady characters and everything in between. The complex documentary film (one of the five Academy Award nominees for Best Doc) equally works as a social commentary of culture clashes between the powerful rich and helpless poor, courtroom drama and political thriller. It shows that there’s plenty of real drama happening in Hollywood’s backyards if only somebody looks for it.

Yama Rahimi: How did you get involved in this project?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: My friend Dominique Derrenger and co-producer saw the piece “Life and Times” on PBS. We have been looking for a project together, so he told me about it and I completely agreed with him. He told me about it on a Friday, I visited the Garden on Tuesday and we shot our first footage on the Wednesday.

YR: How long ago was that?
SHK: That was in the middle of February 2004.

YR: Oh great. It means that a lot of the drama unfolded in front your camera which one hopes for as a filmmaker.
SHK: Absolutely. In terms of documentary serendipity I can’t complain that way. You hope you have a nose for stuff like that but we got handed plenty of story. The difficult part was how to decide in the editing process as far as what to keep or get rid off.

YR: How much footage did you have to choose from?
SHK: Oh god. I would say with archival footage and second camera, we had over 300 hours of footage which was a daunting task to get through.

YR: So it took you almost 5 years?
SHK: From our first day of shooting to our world premiere it was four and half years.

YR: You got a lot iconic characters that you find in literature.
SHK: I agree there are some iconic and complex characters that I found absolutely fascinating like Juanita Tate.

YR: There’s some serious allegations towards Juanita Tate and Jan Perry. Did you find any evidence on how much money they got from the deal?
SHK: We don’t have any hard evidence on money going into Jan Perry’s pocket. What it is, is about influence and power obviously. In our interviews Juanita told us that she got Jan Perry elected without me asking about it. She asked us whether we wanted to know the racial make up of the neighborhood that it is 80% Latino and 20% or less African-American. She followed with her own question how did Jan Perry get elected? “I put twenty kids on the streets and that’s how she got elected.” We found out through the owner and other evidence that after Jan Perry said she had nothing to do with the demise of the garden that she was very much involved with the deal. So it’s influence and “Quid pro Quo” that was given to Jan Perry. There’s hard evidence that Juanita Tate raised millions of dollars for a soccer field that remains unfinished till this day. So the question remains what happend to the money.

YR: What I found fascinating was the culture clash of what the city and considered a piece of wasteland, the Latino community turned into a garden. What it says about our culture….
SHK: Absolutely. That goes to another point I find fascinating and heartbreaking that these poor farmers got beaten by the social curve. They were ahead of their time with their vision of making a garden with sustainability, growing local and importance of organic farming, specially in under served communities like South Central. If my starting date would have been Feb 2008 instead of Feb 2004, it would have been a different outcome for the story.

YR: What was the most difficult challenge on a film like this?
SHK: Obviously financing but also the scope, how daunting it was. The story starts as early as 1986 to 2006. At the bare minimum you have ten main characters at play and many more on the periphery. So to be able to capture all the story on the production side and then on the post-producetion side narrowing down the story to a time frame that’s digestable, clear, and, god forbid, entertaining.

YR: Were you surprised that you got the attention of the Academy and the nomination?
SHK: Sure. One of the amazing that happened in the journey of the film: at the Silver Docs Festival – before we had our world premiere there – I had time to see “Man on Wire” which was amazing. And now, less than a year later, the fact that we are one of the five films along with that film, is really an honor.

YR: I think “Man on Wire” has the edge on winning the Oscar but I wish you all the best anyway since you never know with the Academy in that category.
SHK: We got a little run for our money, what the heck. But please, don’t be sad if we don’t win because we are so happy to be nominated. I think you could make an argument for any of the five to win even if “Man on Wire” seems the favorite.

YR: You have a release date yet?
SHK: We don’t. We are about to close our distribution deal as soon as next week.

Update: Oscilloscope Laboratories is releasing the picture on the 8th of May.