Movies: The Gospel According to Tigre

Philly filmmaker Tigre Hill was skewered by the black establishment for his anti-John Street documentary The Shame of a City. Now, with his controversial new anti-Mumia movie, the knives will be even sharper

 

Hill was a fan of the 1993 Gerald Posner book Case Closed, which debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. Posner had built a profile of Oswald, exploring the influence that radical groups had on him. Hill was learning more about Abu-Jamal’s role with the -violence-preaching Panthers. He saw parallels: “It was almost eerily like the JFK thing,” he says. “Not on the same scale, but now we have another shooter, all these myths coming out.”

Hill e-mailed Posner and persuaded him to come on as a consultant. Late in 2006, Hill was drinking at Tir Na Nog with Kevin Kelly, the former Philadelphia Young Republicans leader who’s been trying to invigorate the city GOP, and Kelly liked the Mumia movie idea. “He said, ‘How much do you need to make it?’” Hill recalls. “But we were drinking. How many times do you say …  But I called him later, and he really meant it.”

Kelly insists it’s not political for him. “My only instructions to Tigre were do your homework, tell the truth. I wanted to see it told correctly,” he says. “I haven’t had a hand in anything. I trust Tigre. He’s not big on timelines, but he does have talent.”

Shooting started in late 2006. They filmed at the Paris suburb that named a street after Mumia. In L.A., Hill interviewed Ed Asner. (“Nice guy. He lends his name to causes. Does he know a lot about the case? No. He thinks he does.”)

Hill had a wrap party for Barrel at Rae in the Cira Centre in March 2008. The film wasn’t actually wrapped, though. Editing continues. The sneak-peek trailer on the Internet landed like a Molotov cocktail and lit up the Mumia movement. Pam Africa, coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, says she’ll organize protests at as many showings of Barrel of a Gun as possible. “Tigre Hill was hired to come up with a movie that states that Mumia is guilty,” she told me. “I don’t give a darn if he shows this film in the bowels of the belly of the beast. When they do it, we will be there.”

Hill wants to get the story right. And he wants to make a compelling movie. Which are two separate things. If no one knows exactly what happened the night Danny Faulkner met Mumia Abu-Jamal, how do you tell the truth? You make art. Art succeeds by leaving an impact, by challenging you to rethink what you were sure about. By not giving you what you expect.

“I think it’s a great story. A tragic story, but a great story,” Hill says. “And when I get this done, I’m moving on. I’ll let everyone else pick up the mantle for whatever position they have.”

Moving on to what, exactly?

“I’d love to do a musical,” he says. “If I can find an edgy way to do it.”  

To see a trailer of Hill’s new film, go here.