Race Memory
By Miguel Coyula • Dec 17th, 2006 • Category: DramaRace Memory is a short that examines contemporary racial issues. The story concerns Horton, an African-American police detective who was brutalized in his childhood by a racist white patrolman. One night at a bar he runs into an old man who might be or not the policeman in question, and so a dueling conversation ensues between the two; which brings up past and present racial issues about them and the society they inhabit.
Where this might seem like a fairly traditional approach (the Two-Guys-in-a-Room, now usually dubbed “The Sundance Genre”), Race Memory is shot in that vein, but later opts for a more experimental editing structure where flashbacks and documentary footage either linked to the story, or as historical background, helps to a create a more dynamic and experimental, often semi-documentary feel.
With sharply written dialogue, Race Memory is slightly hampered by occasional sententiousness in the performances; as if the actors were a bit too self-conscious of the heavy ideas their lines carry. In any case the issue is very minor and doesn’t really detract from this otherwise compelling short. Race Memory has an open ending that induces the viewer to review and question what has been previously debated.
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Miguel Coyula is the director of the $2,000 sci-fi epic Red Cockroaches. His next project is Memorias del Desarrollo, a follow-up to the Cuban classic Memorias del Subdesarrollo (1968), based on the novel by Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes
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