Event

Kamp Katrina

Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's "Kamp Katrina" follows New Orleans Upper 9th Ward resident, Ms. Pearl and her attempt to open up her backyard to give shelter to those who lost their homes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Only a month after the storm, she hears a community organizer urging residents to open their homes to the displaced. The warm-hearted Ms. Pearl enthusiastically offers her backyard and soon ten people move into "Kamp Katrina." Ms. Pearl and her husband attempt to provide resources and paid construction jobs for residents of Kamp Katrina. However, they are forced to deal with the realities of post-Katrina New Orleans - a dysfunctional economy and a often hostile bureaucratic system. Soon the small space of their backyard becomes a problem as stress, drugs and alcohol lead to bad, sometimes violent, behavior. "Kamp Katrina" is a story of hope, community, generosity, rebirth and failure. It is neither a fairy tale nor a parable of things to come. It is an unflinching and authentic descent into the prevailing atmosphere of abandonment that still stubbornly grips large areas of New Orleans more than a year after the storm. Even those with resources and good intentions find themselves stymied by the enormity of dysfunction that is but one disaster away from all of us