Homeless people will attend the Oscars

One night a year, Hollywood gets all the glamor of the Oscars, but its boulevard of stars is where homeless people go to sleep every day.

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Those starkly contrasting worlds will meet next month thanks to the desire of the nominated directors of a documentary on the homeless crisis to invite their characters to the Oscars red carpet.

“Hopefully on the day of the ceremony we can show a little of that coexistence and raise awareness about that humanity that is there, literally across the street, and that we have ignored for a long time”said the brazilian Peter Kosdirector of the documentary short film show me the way home.

“We hope to be able to take two or three of them with us,” added his co-director, the American Jon Shenkin an interview with the AFP.

The documentary, available on Netflix, follows several homeless and vulnerable people in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle for three years.

It intimately shows their daily routines and difficulties on the streets, as well as their hopes of getting out of them.

Among the accompanying people is Luis Rivera Miranda, a middle-aged man with a dog who begins an affair with a woman who is also homeless; and Ronnie “Future Astaire” Willis, who dances on Hollywood Boulevard in front of tourists to earn his bread.

“He has an extraordinary story: someone with classical dance training who has danced with Janet Jackson, choreographed the hit Thong Song”from Sisqo, and “has lived through very difficult times, unfortunately, due to various reasons,” Kos explained.

In Willis’s scenes, “you see the side of the Dolby Theater,” where the Oscars are held, he added.

According to the filmmakers, part of the problem is that many people see people living on the streets in a dehumanized way, and become convinced that the homeless are responsible for their tragedy.

Addressing the causes that pushed them onto the streets, the people in the short film list various factors such as disabilities, rejection by their families for being trans, and depression.

“We hope that the documentary can provide a new perspective, that puts a face to what is happening,” Shenk continued, who hopes that it works as a reminder of who suffers from this situation. “They are Americans, they are our neighbors, they have rights, they are people.”

gigantic crisis of humanity

The directors embraced their characters and gained their trust by working with homeless support organizations.

Instead of interviewing them directly, Shenk placed his camera in shelters where homeless people participated in “vulnerability analysis” interviews, and left the room to allow them to freely discuss their situation.

But one of the most poignant moments in the documentary is when a homeless woman tells a social worker at a makeshift camp that a man named Mike has beaten her again, prompting the social worker to call a shelter to help her escape. .

“For women sexual violence is something real”Shenk assured. “I can’t think of a single woman we met who doesn’t have a story related to this.”

Shenk and Kos do not propose a solution to this problem that is the province of the leaders of the cities of the west coast of the United States, but they think that simplifying the enormous bureaucracy of the social programs available to the homeless could be a start.

Los Angeles is currently conducting its first homeless census in two years due to the pause imposed by covid-19.

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The documentary points out that the no-eviction policy adopted during the pandemic will soon expire, possibly worsening the crisis.

“We have no doubt that we are experiencing a gigantic crisis of humanity in the United States”Shenk noted.

“We hope to use this little moment of attention in our little movie to open up a conversation that allows people to have a point of view that they might not otherwise have had.” (I)