MDFF 2021 - The Road Up
Driven by an impassioned mentor, four participants in a Chicago job-training program search for hope, and a pathway out of poverty.
Interview with Directors Greg Jacobs, Jon Siskel
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
GREG: We tend to be agnostic when it comes to our subject matter—if there are powerful stories and an interesting way to tell them, we're in, and from the moment we were introduced to Cara, it was clear there were both. It's only in retrospect that we can see there are common threads that run through all of our work, and provide a logic to the stories we're drawn to. In many ways, we've come to see The Road Up as the third installment of a kind of accidental trilogy, an ongoing story we didn’t even realize we were telling. While our previous documentary features—Louder Than a Bomb and No Small Matter—seem to have little in common with The Road Up in terms of style and subject matter, they all deal in one form or another with innovative ways to address urgent issues of poverty, inequality of opportunity, and isolation. And yet the theme that truly connects them is about as old as it gets—the transformative power of connection, community, and love.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
JON: The Road Up is a deeply moving film that will introduce you to some unforgettable people. Its subject matter—poverty, unemployment, and the consequences of racial inequity—is about as timely as it gets. And trust us when we say that at least one thing Mr. Jesse says in the film will apply directly to your life!
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
GREG: There are two ways to answer this. First, Cara as an organization exists at the intersection of the personal and the structural. The people the organization serves are there in large part because their opportunities have been constrained by huge systemic forces like segregation, mass incarceration, epidemics of addiction, and increasing inequality. And yet none of those issues will be solved by tomorrow morning, and they all still have to get through the day. So how does Cara give their students the tools they need to persist, and ultimately to thrive, even as the necessary work of pushing for broader social change continues?
That question is at the heart of everything Jesse Teverbaugh does in The Road Up. But Jesse's lessons don't just apply to the students in his Transformations class, which gets to the second way to answer the question: while the struggles we see in the film are profoundly personal, the themes they evoke, and the ways they are articulated, are universal. So we're confident that just as audiences will be engaged and moved by the film, they'll also encounter something that will resonate deeply and directly with their own personal journeys.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
JON: The process of making a documentary is never predictable. But to a certain extent, The Road Up evolved in a fairly conventional way: building trust with our subjects; reacting to events over time; and collaborating with our team to craft a compelling story. Much more unusual was how the response to the film evolved. While we believed all along that the film was urgently relevant, it was harder to convince people when unemployment was under 4% and the intersection of race, place, and poverty was, for many people, not front and center. But the confluence of covid-19 and the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd definitely changed that. So a lot of audiences are now approaching the film through a lens that may not have been there previously, which makes it not just powerful, but also really relevant.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
GREG: The response to the film so far has been even better than we could've expected, starting with its premiere last fall at the Chicago International Film Festival, where it won the documentary Audience Award. Two weeks ago, we got to watch the finished film for the first time with an audience in a theater, at the Sedona International Film Festival. During the Q&A, someone raised their hand and said, "I don't have a question. I just wanted to say that that was one of the ten best documentaries I've ever seen in my life!" When something like that happens, you start to think, "maybe we're on the right track."
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
GREG: The Road Up is in some ways darker or more ambiguous than some of our other work, so it's been a bit surprising for me to see how often people describe it as "inspiring". In the end, we definitely wanted it to be hopeful—after all, as Jesse says in the film, "without hope, there's nothing"—as long as it felt earned, not manipulative or false. Judging from the feedback we've received, we seem to have hit the mark, leaving audiences with a sense that there is a road up for our subjects, but it's fragile, fraught, and precarious.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
JON: While we've mostly been focused so far on connecting with impact-related audiences with The Road Up, www.wearemovingstories.com is an opportunity for the film to gain more visibility within the film community.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
JON: We encourage distributors to contact our sales agent, Annie Roney, at ro*co films; and we encourage journalists interested in the organization or the issues highlighted in the film to contact us!
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
GREG: We're currently in the process of putting together an ambitious impact campaign for the film, starting with a discussion guide that can be read as both a basic "how-to" for hosting a screening and a primer on the causes and consequences of poverty. The goal of the campaign is to foster challenging conversations about the way systemic forces constrain opportunity in America, calling attention to the complex needs of the population Cara serves and sparking changes in corporate hiring practices, workforce development policies, and public attitudes nationwide. One thing we're now realizing is that this goal really resonates with corporate DEI & CSR efforts, so if those efforts are authentic, there may be some exciting opportunities to reach the decision-makers who determine just how inclusive our economy really is.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
GREG: How do systemic forces constrain opportunity in America, and how do we address the complex needs of the population Cara serves in order to create a more inclusive economy?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
JON: At the moment, we're focused on this film, as well as our continued work in the early childhood space with our partners in No Small Matter Media. But we've got a few ideas in the works, which we hope to get off the ground in the coming months!
Interview: July 2021
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
The Road Up
Length
1:32:50
DIRECTORS
The co-founders of Chicago-based Siskel/Jacobs Productions, GREG JACOBS and JON SISKEL specialize in making entertaining, accessible films that tell compelling stories with integrity, complexity, emotion, and humor. Their work includes the acclaimed feature documentaries The Road Up, No Small Matter, and Louder Than a Bomb, as well as the Emmy Award-winning TV docs 102 Minutes That Changed America and Witness: Katrina.
PRODUCER
RACHEL PIKELNY is the founder of Nyla Pictures. Named to DOC NYC and Topic Studios’ inaugural “40 Under 40” list, Rachel has produced such acclaimed documentaries as The Road Up, Represent, No Small Matter, and The Trials of Muhammad Ali, and directed the award-winning short Grace. The co-chair of the Documentary Producers Alliance from 2016-20, she is dedicated to advancing producer agency in the documentary industry, and to strengthening the voices of underrepresented communities and storytellers.
Social media:
https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadUp
https://twitter.com/TheRoadUpFilm
https://www.instagram.com/theroadupfilm/
Hashtags:
#TheRoadUp, #TheRoadUpFilm, #TRUdocumentary
Looking for:
distributors, buyers
Where can I watch it?
Melbourne Documentary Film Festival/Melbourne, Australia - July 1-31