On Monday, April 4 I attended a meeting of the Alchemist Community
Development Organization <www.alchemist.org>. Actually this was a
public movie night held at the Capitol Garage, a bar and coffee house
on the corner of K and 15th in, appropriately, a parking structure.
The Alchemists are a social action group made up mostly of college age
people. They work to raise public awareness of various issues and last
night their topic was the homeless. Thanks to a contact that was made
by Bob they heard about our film "A Night on the River" and asked to
show it at their event. I made a copy for them and agreed to show up
to answer questions.

The crowd seemed to like ANOTR. They applauded at the end and no one
had anything negative to say.

Besides our film they showed another longer film "Takeover", a
documentary about a movement in 1990 when homeless all over the country
attempted to occupy vacant houses owned by HUD which were due to be
auctioned off to developers who stood to make large profits. The film
was similar in ways to Michael Moore's work in showing confrontation
between activists and officials.

Afterwards I talked to one attendee who is herself homeless and active
with groups like Loaves and Fishes. She writes for their newsletter.
I didn't catch her name but I plan to pick up a copy of the newsletter
and see if I can figure out who she is.

I asked her to comment on ANOTR with respect to its realism. She said
that in her experience the homeless do not open up about their history
and problems, the way Pete and Dot did, on such short notice. She said
they prefer to stay upbeat, in the here and now. Dwelling on their
history and problems would be too depressing and discussing them with
people they didn't know very well would make them more vulnerable.

I wondered if she would like to work on a remake and maybe cast real
homeless people and she thought that would be a good idea.

Erick