← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
'For Venida, For Kalief' Commemorates Kalief Browder and His Mother
00:22:13
A new documentary premiering at the Tribeca Festival follows the movement to seek justice following Kalief Browder's death.
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- [00:00]
Alison Stewart
All of it is supported by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. This is all of it on WNYC. Hi, I'm Alison Stewart. Tomorrow, Friday, June 6th, is the 10th year anniversary of Kalief Browder's death. In 2015, 22 year old Kalief Browder ended his life after spending almost three years in Rikers island jail facility without trial, mostly in solitary confinement. His mother, Vanita worked tirelessly to share her son's story, but she died from a heart attack a year later at age 63. Now a new documentary reflects on the legacy of Browder's advocacy. It's titled For Vanita For Kalief. Using Vanita's poem as an poems as an anchor, the film weaves together interviews with Kalief siblings and archival photos and footage of the Browders alongside conversations about the ripple effects of mass incarceration and plans to close Rikers island altogether. The law requires Rikers to close in 2027, but logistically that isn't happening. It's a whole set of problems, including disputes with communities over new jail facilities currently being built in other neighborhoods like Chinatown and downtown Brooklyn. For Vanita for Kalief premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival this Friday, June 6, with three additional showings at AMC on 19th street and at Village east by the Angelica. This weekend, the film's director, Sisa Bueno, joins us to discuss. Thank you for coming to the studio.
- [01:55]
Sisa Bueno
Thank you for having me, Alison. Great to be here.
- [01:56]
Alison Stewart
So Kalief's story and his mother's story is one that's been told, sadly told over and over again in magazines, in television stories. What did you want to add? What did you think you could add with this new mission of using his mom's poems?
- [02:14]
Sisa Bueno
Yes, I think for me one of my main goals was to try and make a film that was less that allowed us to sort of get a great comprehensive understanding of like the issue, but at the same time also less trauma inducing, less triggering kind of imagery to try to make something that kind of showed all the people that get impacted by these situations, which are called impacted people, show them with a sense of three dimensionality. Right. And I think having her poetry sort of lead in that way makes us see that, you know, these horrible things happen to certain people. That's not all who they are you know?
- [02:56]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [02:57]
Sisa Bueno
And. And so really when I heard that she made those poems, and it was a really serendipitous moment and we can talk about how that happened, but it really just struck a chord with me and it just really felt like a very clear vehicle to lead the film.
- [03:12]
Alison Stewart
Well, tell me how you came to it.
- [03:14]
Sisa Bueno
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I have always been pretty plugged into the city. I'm from New York and always sort of aware of all the issues and really empathizing with a lot of people, power and social movements and whatnot. And so when Khalif passed away, it just kind of struck a chord, I think, with everyone here in this sort of artivist community. And I think for me, you know, it sounds like a far fetched thing, but it really was like I couldn't get it out of my mind. And so when you think of people who start a project, it's like, it's just a constant kind of thought or a constant pull. That's exactly what I felt. It was a constant pull to this story. And so then I heard that Vanita was speaking at the New School, this was in 2016, and I decided to go. And I was like, you know what, Let me just take my camera. Let me just go. Because I'm interested in doing something. I was just, you know, coming off of another project and I'm like, well, let me just try and see if this is going to be something. And so I went. And it's funny enough, I'm a late person. I get late everywhere for the most part, but not here. I'm here on time, thankfully. I really tried hard today, so. But I got there and it's so funny because it was packed, the auditorium and the only seat that was available was one at the very, very front at her eye line. Right. And so that image you saw the film and the scene, the only scene that we see Venita in, in this film is literally that moment. So it's the moment where I brought my camera and I was like, oh, I'm just curious. Let me see what happens. It's almost. I felt very much led. That chair was there for me and no other chair was available. It was just that one. And so that's kind of how it began. And when I hear speak on that stage. And so what you saw in that scene, when she was answering, how she dealt with all of this, you know, pain and heartache, she just let out that she was writing poems. I was like, oh, my gosh. And I just sort of have these visions of montages, New York montages, really, you know, because for me, you know, as a New Yorker and a filmmaker, you want to make that homage New York film. And so a lot of that is also what's going on in this film, too. It's like, really just honoring New York as the wonderful, complex place that it is and using those montages to do that. And so, yeah, so I just started seeing that kind of play in my mind at that moment.
- [05:38]
Alison Stewart
How did you decide who would voice the poems?
- [05:43]
Sisa Bueno
Well, initially, it was supposed to be her, right? So, I mean, after meeting her, you know, well, it took a little bit of time. I first ran into Akeem Browder, who is one of her children, who was very much in the activist space and was literally in my neighborhood in Harlem doing an activation and an action. And I just went and I approached, and I was like, hey, you know, I'm really interested. And so then we formed, like, you know, relationship from there, and then, like, kind of moved into meeting Benita in that way. And then I started visiting with her and, you know, reading some of her poems and all that and sitting with her and just talking about, you know, just how she's going through and coping and all that and her process. And so initially, when I proposed this to her, it was going to be her reading it. But, you know, by that time, she had already had, like, either one or two heart attacks since Kalief passed. She was already pretty. Her heart was pretty weak and was on a lot of medication, and she was just stressed for a lot of different reasons that were personal, and in addition to the Caliph and all that. And, you know, she just died all of a sudden in October, so later that year. So it was kind of a really huge pivot. So really, I was in search for a voice for quite a long time. Honestly, I just needed to make the film at that point because I was very early on in the process, because that was in 2016, I was still in development. So I had to make this pivot really early. So I knew I'd have to find a voice eventually, but I needed to just finish the film first. And I was using myself, my own voice as. As a temp track for a long time and really trying to find a really great poet who could really help me, you know, really synthesize those words, because there were just some poems where I just felt like I couldn't really resonate. And so when I found Jasmine Manns, I thought she was an incredible voice, first of all, an incredible orator. And just a voice that is very unique, like no other, has a really great resonance and tone and. And. Yeah, and she's just really experienced and really, I think at the time. This is now towards the end of the film. This is like a year ago where we actually started collaborating. So she came at very. The very end of the process.
- [07:59]
Alison Stewart
It's interesting. I wonder how having a poet like Jasmine Mann read the poetry, did you notice something new about it? Did you notice anything different about it than when you had first heard or read the poetry, when you heard a poet read it?
- [08:16]
Sisa Bueno
Um, yeah, I mean, I think. I think, you know, the tone and the delivery really makes a huge difference. I think we worked really hard together on that. We spent quite a few. A lot of time in the. In the recording studio trying to get to the right points, the cadence, the right hits, the right moments to sort of emphasize. And I think the result that we did together was an incredible result. And I think mostly I sat with her across. With Vinita across the table for a while, and I really took in a lot of her emotion at that point. So kind of a lot of it was transmitted to Jasmine as well. And then having that kind of combination, that kind of personal tone that I knew that Vanita had, and combined with Jasmine's experience in terms of just her own innate emotionality. That's the combination that you're hearing at this point, which is an incredible feat. I think we had a. It's a really good. Just a really resonant, poetic track.
- [09:16]
Alison Stewart
The new film, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this Friday, June 6, revisits the story of Kalief Browder through the poems Mother Vanita, who advocated for him after he took his own life after being held at Rikers without trial for three years. It's titled For Vanita, for Khalif. Its director is with me, Sisa Bueno. When you approach the Browders about making this film, what questions did they have for you? What did they want to know?
- [09:46]
Sisa Bueno
Honestly, it was really early in the process, and they were already. It was very tricky for them. They were already in another project. If people are familiar, there is another documentary film called Time the Colleague Browder Story. It's a series on Netflix, and it's a pretty different approach to what I'm doing, also in a different timeline. And I think that film was effective for that particular timeline to really just sort of raise awareness about the injustices of the case. So if you put these two films together, they're very different tonality in terms of tonality and in terms of, like, what the. What they're addressing. Right. Because this is a completely different timeline. But. But they were still kind of at the closing end of production on that. And so I think they were just kind of. It was. And they just got into that really quickly, too. So I think, honestly, they hadn't had enough time to process, but they were willing because they know. Knew, you know, they wanted to as much out as possible about what happened with Khalif, and they were just dealing with a lot with the city and whatnot. So I think they were more questioning about, well, why her poems? Because I really led with that. And even Vanita herself was like, why do you want to use my poems? I don't get it. And I said, no, I just think that this is a really important vehicle because I really want to try tenderness as a real kind of goal here with trying to shift. I mean, I been making. I've been in this. In this for a long time and really have a really clear intent on trying to sort of push boundaries on how storytelling is told here and really trying to challenge us, you know, in terms of not just as an audience, but also as our storytellers, too. Like, well, how can we try to sort of make something a little bit more. With more depth? And so, you know, leading with that, for me, was really important for that reason. But they. They weren't on that point exactly, but happy that.
- [11:40]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [11:40]
Sisa Bueno
That it was going to have some attention, though. So she was willing to go with it, which I'm really happy for.
- [11:45]
Alison Stewart
What struck you as a filmmaker about the way the Browders spoke about Vanita.
- [11:52]
Sisa Bueno
In terms. In terms in general, like, when they. Yeah, I mean, obviously, woman. Yeah, I mean, just a real powerhouse of motherly femininity, really. Like a. Like a real nurturer. A real. Real nurturer from through and through. And she was always there for them. It was a really busy household, so. And, you know, in the film, you know, it's actually really an adoptive family, so it's a mix. You know, she had a couple of kids that were biological, and then the rest of them were all adopted, which is, you know, really honorable. Really beautiful to see that. So I just want to lift that up for parents who are adoptive parents really shout out to you because it's really, you know, just a beautiful thing. But. But no, they really honestly speak to her really highly, mostly because she was a great mother, but also because she decided to open her doors for not just adoptees, but also fostered kids as well. So she's just a very motherly, loving person.
- [12:51]
Alison Stewart
When you spoke to her and you spoke to her sons, but specifically when you spoke to her, what fears did she have about her son Khalif while he was at Rikers?
- [13:05]
Sisa Bueno
I mean, they were already being played out because he was experiencing intense violence and also just intense torture via solitary. So I think all of her worst nightmares were being played out. There was nothing left to fear. She was just having to deal with all this horrendous experiences that her then 15, 16, 17 year old child. Right. Was dealing with. Yeah.
- [13:36]
Alison Stewart
And when you read her poems, could you sense her fear in the poems?
- [13:41]
Sisa Bueno
Oh, yeah. Well, because, you know, the poems were. So what she, what, what the end result product is, is that it was a giant word document that was not just poems, but a journal.
- [13:50]
Alison Stewart
Oh, wow. So that's interesting.
- [13:51]
Sisa Bueno
Yeah, so that's so. So that really honestly helps understand a lot more of like, what the poems mean. And really, again, getting at the heart of like, what's the pain in her heart? But also there were moments too, of levity. I wanna also just stress that because again, you know, we're not all just the traumatic thing that happens to us. I think like anyone else, life continues and you still have moments of joy, you know, in. While carrying a load, you know, which is why a lot of the montages that I chose to make in this film are actually quite positive and beautiful and lovely. You know, people watching fireworks on a rooftop at night, salsa party happening in the middle of the street. This is like New York, typical New York scenes that I grew up with. And I wanted to emphasize that. I wanted to bring that to light and I wanted to juxtapose that, yes, with this hard story. Because again, like, people deal with horrible things, but at the same time, that's not all that they are. That's not all that we are. We're not just our pain. So I really wanted to really make sure that that's clear.
- [15:02]
Alison Stewart
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that because you also are an activist and a documentarian. You have to document what happened as well as the part about the beautiful part about the poetry and the lyricism. But you do have to document what's happening at Rikers Island. How did you do? How did you keep that balance?
- [15:24]
Sisa Bueno
Yeah, I also knew at the same time pretty early on that I wanted to challenge again how, or disrupt challenge how storytelling, criminal justice storytelling is told. And most of the time when criminal justice storytelling is told, it's really, again, from a point of what I call Shock and awe. So let's talk about all the horrendous things that are happening and that will generate some sort of outrage and then change will happen. And yeah, I think at a certain point that worked. I think now, you know, I think we're pretty apathetic to that. I think we're pretty numb to that kind of approach. So I think now it's high time to, you know, find a way to sort of resonate in a different way. And I think really it's through the heart and it's through just really deep emotion, which I think the film does. And but in addition to that, I wanted to also focus on what's working or how to get things to work. What is the process? What does that involve? What is the two steps forward, two steps back dynamic that is always the reality in every kind of situation in terms of trying to make something change. And so, yeah, and I wanted to really highlight the activists, the advocates that took Kalief's story as this kind of fuel to continue their work and to really push for more. And honestly, you know, the positive thing that did come out of Kalief's case is that it really was like this kind of like canary in the coal mine situation. This kind of. It just. People just remember it and it just, it just resonates and you can just bring it up constantly and the film does that. It shows you how often it's brought up. I didn't have to do it. People are constantly talking about it. And I just also saw that as a really interesting through line or the way to sort of tell the story without telling it almost in a way.
- [17:17]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. You know, it was so interesting. We talked about the process, the process of what do we do about Rikers Island? What do we do about mass incarceration? Another thing I thought was interesting in the film was you talked to another woman, Tamara Carter, whose 25 year old son, Brandon Rodriguez, he also died in Rikers facility. She could talk to you. What parallels did you see between her story and Vanita's story? Or were they sort of tons?
- [17:48]
Sisa Bueno
Yeah, yeah, tons of parallels.
- [17:50]
Alison Stewart
Did they dovetail? I'm sort of.
- [17:51]
Sisa Bueno
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think they. She says herself that she identifies with Vanita, but I mean, I think there's just so many countless stories of young people who are just swept up for, you know, for somewhat minor things and just are left there. And I think this is the problem with Rikers in general. It's just that people don't understand and I hope that they will a little Bit better with this film. Understand that Rikers is a jail. And the difference between a jail and a prison is that a jail is literally a holding place. So you. No one's guilty in Rikers. Technically. No one's had trauma. A few people are because sometimes they have like minor, let's say minor sentences or people who had like, really small convictions. But aside from that, the majority of people on Rikers island are actually awaiting a trial and technically innocent. And so, you know, to be treated in that way is, you know, it's just unconscionable and really shocking. And a lot. With Tamara's case in particular, what was most shocking is that she wasn't really notified what was going on with her son. Her son was arrested and for whatever reason, he couldn't get a call out to her. And he was there for a short amount of time. And he also had some challenges mentally and physically, and I think could not handle the pressure of this intense violence. And being also stuck in what's known as a shower cell, which I think people can look up and Google what that is. But basically, essentially it's an empty shower that people are being held in because there's not enough room in the facility. And. And he at some point died. And no one really knows how that happened. And the notification got to her in a really weird way. Not directly. Apparently she was found contacted via Facebook. Yeah, that's how her case is kind of remembered. So, you know, these kind of, you know, dysfunctionality that's happening, you know, is multi layered and multifaceted and really complex to unwind and figure out. And it should. But it's, you know, in that way, it's like you still need to sort of try and sort of assess and try to sort of go step by step. And some people are maybe assuming that, you know, closing Rikers is. It is the best way to go. And perhaps. Yes, I think it is for sure. And to sort of create other spaces, I suppose, or other institutions that can sort of help in terms of like sort of interject and sort of skip, you know, this kind of sort of. These kind of spaces that sort of hold people indefinitely and there are other alternatives so that people can sort of not be impacted in that particular way.
- [20:54]
Alison Stewart
I was going to say, as we close, I want to point out that you talk about advocacy, different ways that we can go about solving the problem. Was there anything that you heard that gives you hope?
- [21:08]
Sisa Bueno
Yeah, Rikers is set to close, which is. It is law for it to close in 2027. That is a hopeful thing. It is a hopeful thing and I think a really necessary thing considering all the things that are happening on there. And perhaps it's just. What I'm trying to say is that it's just a real tight wound like problem. It's hard to unravel. And so really most people are advocating to close and to replace it with something called renewable Rikers, which is an incredible idea which also the film addresses, which is closing down Rikers and using that island space to set up renewable energy, renewable energy solar panels across the island to sort of fuel the power of the city. And so it's a really wonderful alternative that hopefully will come to pass. It is law. Both of those things are law. It depends on who the next mayor will be in terms of how that will continue.
- [22:07]
Alison Stewart
The film is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this Friday, June 6th. It's called for Vanita for Kalief. Its director is Sisa Bueno. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you for sharing the filming of how you made this film. Really appreciate it.
- [22:21]
Sisa Bueno
Thank you for having me, Allison. Thank you much. So, so much.
- [22:24]
Alison Stewart
That is all of it for today. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here next time.
- [22:35]
Sisa Bueno
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- [22:36]
Alison Stewart
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- [22:46]
Sisa Bueno
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- [22:48]
Alison Stewart
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- [22:51]
Sisa Bueno
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- [23:04]
Alison Stewart
Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.