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With 1000 Channels, Why Not Show Quest? by Doniphan Blair
The incredible young actor, Gregory Kasyan, stars as Santiago Rizzo's character in his powerful autobiographical film 'Quest'. photo: courtesy The Truth Always Rises
I LOVED 'QUEST: THE TRUTH ALWAYS
Rises', when I viewed it at the Napa Valley Film Festival, in November, 2017. About an abused boy, who takes to the streets and graffiti art until his middle school football coach challenges him to open his heart, I was not surprised when it swept Napa, taking home the audience AND juried first prize as well as best actor for its star Greg Kasyan.
Mick LaSalle, the wellknown Bay Area critic, compared “Quest”, co-written/directed by Berkeley-born Santiago Rizzo, to Truffaut's "400 Blows" (1959). LaSalle also wrote a glowing feature on it for the magazine put out by Stanford University, Rizzo’s alma mater, as did I for cineSOURCE (see article).
I was surprised, however, when I contacted Rizzo a year and a half later, and found out that “Quest”, which co-stars Lakeith Stanfield (star of indie hit “Sorry to Bother You”, 2018, and the acclaimed TV show “Atlanta“, 2016-current), and features Lou Diamond Phillips (“La Bamba”, 1987) and Betsy Brandt (“Breaking Bad”, 2008-13), had not been picked up by a distributor.
According to Rizzo, when we sat down in late July, over massive bowls of Vietnamese pho on Telegraph Avenue, "Quest" falls between the cracks of being too heartfelt and intense but not big and Hollywood enough—even though it has consistently won accolades from critics and awards from festivals.
More importantly perhaps, “Quest” has been hailed by folks from all walks of life, as Rizzo learned screening it across the country and the globe to a wide variety of groups. While a representative of the Vatican complained of the cursing (Rizzo got that screening because his Argentine grandfather knew the pope from their home country), at the dozens of correctional facilities Rizzo has visited, “Quest” routinely earns tears and standing ovations, from officers and inmates alike.
So powerful is the film to such viewers, it helped bring radical change to an Arkansas juvenile detention center.
In fact, that institution’s profound shift would have provided a Hollywood-esque climax to a "showing-of"—instead of a "making-of"—documentary about “Quest”, although the making-of doc would have been equally fascinating and dramatic (see cineSOURCE article).
Another champion of Rizzo's 'Quest' is Jonathan Pickering, the director of an Arkansas juvenile hall. photo: courtesy J. Pickering
“A year ago, we showed the movie ‘Quest’,” wrote Jonathan Pickering, the current administrator of the White River Regional Juvenile Detention Center (WRRJDC), in Batesville, Arkansas, in an email to Rizzo (5/14/19). “[A]nd it has completely transformed the lives of everyone who saw it. So much so, I want to share its powerful message of hope, redemption, and compassion with you.”
A private institution, which got sold back to the county in 2012, WRRJDC “entered a scary, dark patch when a new administrator was hired who decided to make the facility her own island of control,” continued Pickering. “She re-wrote policies, fired most of the veteran staff… cut off communication with other facilities and [used] excessive force.”
After that administrator was ousted by a whistle blower, who reported her to a county judge, Pickering, who had 14 years of experience in the adult incarceration system, joined WRRJDC as an officer and then as its administrator determined to change it.
“We phased out punitive practices. We revised training around better ways of communicating with the kids.” But, “[m]any staff quit, believing that the new approach was not hard enough on the kids. For those who stayed, they cooperated but the tension between them and [my] new administration was high.”
Gradually, Pickering began achieving break-throughs, notably the peaceful resolution of a violent standoff with a 17-year-old, who had been institutionalized since he was seven.
In addition, “I started to publicly speak out and educate the public and those in positions of power, but it wasn’t enough. Then one day, I noticed that a film director/producer was coming to Bentonville, Arkansas, to present his movie at a film festival.”
After pulling some strings, “[w]e finally arranged a time for the kids and staff to see [‘Quest’], which entailed [Santiago Rizzo] changing his flight back to California, renting a car, and driving several hours from Bentonville. He did not ask for any money.”
“After we all watched it together, Santiago revealed that film was about him. Then he did something that many of the kids and staff were not expecting. He confronted the kids with the truth and power of love and empathy. Kids who are in our care for offenses such as murder and other violent crimes opened up to him.”
“They wondered how their lives might be different if they had someone like Coach Tim [Moellering, of Berkeley’s Willard Middle School] to just show them love and compassion, to take a chance on them. [And] Santi did not let the conversation end there.”
“Santi reached out to show them it’s not too late. Their lives can still change through the power of love, dedication, empathy, and forgiveness. He pointed out several parts in ‘Quest’ that illustrate his points.”
Rizzo presenting his film 'Quest' at the White River Juvenile Center in Arkansas, where it helped foster fantastic institutional change. photo: courtesy The Truth Always Rises
“The impact was phenomenal. Many of the kids cried and opened up… They spoke about how they could help each other, help themselves, and most importantly help their communities when they return home.”
“One of the kids had refused to participate, going back to his room instead of talking about the movie. After Santi finished speaking with the group, he attempted to reach out to him. I could not allow Santi to speak with him face-to-face because the young man was visibly upset,” and had a history of violence with the attendants.
“Despite explaining that, Santi still tried, refusing to give up on him. He went to his cell and told him to scream into a pillow until he cried. The young man stared him down with hate. I watched Santi, fearlessly feed him back love, gently shifting his energy and judgment. A week later, [Santi] reached out again to see how he was doing.”
“I could not believe the impact that the film ‘Quest’ had on the youth. They were opening up and speaking about their trauma, often for the first time… The youth who walked away, after witnessing what was happening around him, even started opening up. He started to participate more in school… It was a spectacular change.”
“The change did not end there—I’ve noticed that the staff had changed, too. They started volunteering their free time to speak to the kids and do projects with them, painting murals and helping kids build gardens… It was beautiful.”
“Since that date in May, this facility has undergone so many changes… We are leaving the prison of juvenile detention behind. The locks are coming off the doors as we make the facility into a home-away-from-home for those kids who need help.”
"Juvenile detention does not work. All children deserve to experience, despite their current situation, people who show them love and compassion… They need to experience that—when we challenge our fears, and tell the truth, with love and empathy—we can have a wonderful life. It is not about success and money but about living.”
Rizzo with some of the staff at the San Francisco city jail. photo: courtesy The Truth Always Rises
““The film ‘Quest’ reignited a flame in the youth and ignited a flame in the staff that have made real change possible at this facility. As of May 8, 2019 [when Santi showed ‘Quest’], White River Regional Center is now in the news not for its dark past but for what we’re pioneering.”
“On May 10, 2019, we received a phone call from a judge, who is part of the Judge's Panel for Juvenile Justice Reform. [She] informed me that they are in full support of our transition… of what we are becoming.”
“I know this would not have been possible without ‘Quest’. It would not have been possible without Santi opening up, personally reaching out to the kids, and staying in touch about their progress after [the screening]. His film reached everyone here in a profound and unexpected way.”
In our times of extremely injured young people, particularly men, when they are acting out much more than historically, including inflicting the tragic plague of mass shootings, perhaps it is time for distributors to listen to social workers like Jonathan Pickering or film critics like Claudia Puig, the president of the LA Film Critic Association, who said:
“Exactly the kind of timely and important film that needs to be seen all over the country.”
Alas, even though we now have thousands of media channels and dozens of production conglomerates, like Netflix, Amazon, Youtube and Apple, throwing billions of dollars at untested content, there remains a fear of powerful and empowering art, as if opening the Pandora's Box of heartfelt, empathic and visionary media might rupture their business model.
"I think I scare everyone because I’m too honest," is the reaction of Rizzo, who spent two decades working his way up as a stock analyst, never attended film school and only recently immersed himself in the life of the artist.
But this is pretty understandable given the extremely personal nature of "Quest" and how he had to put everything on the line to make it. Indeed, he financed the almost-million-dollar film by liquidating not only his bank and retirement accounts but the Berkeley house he bought and lived in with Coach Tim Moellering.
In fact, he swore to Moellering, on his death bed from cancer, he would never sell their house to make their movie (Moellering worked on early script drafts). But that was before Rizzo became an artist and learned that artists are obliged to bet the house, literally, in the attempt to manifest their vision.
"We are honoring those with money above the artist," Rizzo has found, in his many meetings with and rejections by our mass media's gatekeepers. "And those with money get to determine what is commercial art. Those who are rejecting ['Quest'] are from safest backgrounds. Changing their mind requires feelings they don’t want, sacrifices they don’t want to have to make."
As a new comer to the artist's life and the art-commerce interface, Rizzo is both unaccustomed to criticism and untrained in leaving one's moral ascendency on the screen to become more down-to-earth at meetings.
'Quest' director Rizzo enjoys a bowl of pho at his favorite Vietnamese restaurant, next door to the Jack in the Box he frequented as street kid recycling bottles. photo: D. Blair
On the other hand, his untutored attitude has served him well at places like the White River Regional Juvenile Detention Center. Moreover, it has provided him the satisfaction of not only creating a very powerful and extremely personal film, his first time out, as well as affecting so many troubled youth, very similar to him as a kid, but inventing a new form of feature filmmaking.
While documentary filmmakers routinely make modest careers out hand-delivering their films to special-interest groups, it is rare among features, which are expected to stand or fall on the screen, solely on the basis of drama, aesthetics and insight.
In addition to the White River Regional Juvenile Detention Center and three other facilities in Arkansas, Rizzo has shown "Quest" in correctional institutions from California (San Francisco, San Leandro, Santa Cruz and Santa Rita) to New York City, Chicago and Cleveland, as well as overseas in Germany.
In those places, the simple fact that the film is autobiographical—which Rizzo reveals to his audiences right after the lights come on—and that he co-wrote, directed and produced it, despite not having attended film school, instantly proves his proposition that forgiveness, self-expression and immense achievement are possible if you give it your all.
In this way, it would be no exaggeration to say that Rizzo has invented a new branch of the cinematic art form: narrative film as a visionary, highly personal form of group therapy.
Now if only a distributor would take a chance and expand that group to include the rest of us.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .Posted on Sep 09, 2019 - 08:29 PM