Ohio premiere screening of Dawn Porter's documentary about a wrongful conviction, with the director in person, as part of Unorthodocs.
Dawn Porter brings her documentary When a Witness Recants to the Wexner Center for the Arts on Friday, October 23, for its Ohio premiere. It's a 112-minute film, and Porter will be there in person, which is a nice bonus if you're into the filmmaking side of things.
The story starts with author Ta-Nehisi Coates remembering a 14-year-old boy murdered in his Baltimore middle school corridor back in 1983. When he revisits the case as an adult, he finds that three innocent teenagers had been convicted and sentenced to life, their names cleared only when false testimony surfaced after they'd spent 36 years in prison. From there, the film looks at the collateral damage left behind—the wrongly accused and the young witnesses who were pressured to betray them. The recreations are done in a graphic novel style by Dawud Anyabwile, so it's not just talking heads; there's a visual language to the whole thing. RogerEbert.com called it "a harrowing investigative piece [that] moves with the sure-footedness of the truth stepping out into the light."
The screening is part of Unorthodocs, the Wexner Center's annual festival of creative nonfiction filmmaking, which is now in its 10th year. If you're a fan of documentaries that lean into the investigative side, this is exactly that kind of thing.
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It plays at the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater, 1871 N. High Street, at 7 PM. Tickets are $12 for the general public, $8 for members, $9 for adults 55 and over, and $6 for students.
