Jason Sondhi
With this film winning the Russo Brothers’ Award at Slamdance and its director, Hannah Peterson, receiving the coveted Tribeca/Chanel “Through Her Lens” grant earlier this year, East of the River makes its online premiere today with large expectations. Yet it is fair for you to wonder, on first viewing, what the hype is about. The film is an intimate slice-of-life treatment of black teens in Washington D.C. and thus is resolutely grounded—there are no grand narrative turns or dramatic contrivances. It possesses an urgent societal critique embedded within its premise and plot, but neither Peterson nor the talented first-time actors drawn from the local school system oversell the point. Instead, it is a character-driven film that prizes authenticity, with much of its development occurring through the interiority of its splendid lead, Ayiana T. Davis. So, while the scenes of a lazy day out of school can appear unmomentous, their accumulation and the subtextual reveals Peterson and her screenwriting partner Stacey Eunnae layer in serve to create a film that blooms in your mind over time and repeated exposure—the poignancy of its message increasing with reflection.
The film kicks off at school with Teonna attempting to enter through the massive metal-detectors that bar the entryway. She is turned away. Why? She doesn’t know, and none of the administrators seem to either, but she’s “on the list”. She plaintively asks if she will still get breakfast. The scene is indicative of the Peterson’s approach—the metal detectors themselves are unremarked upon, but undeniably strange to many American’s memory of their school experience, lending a sinister, institutional air to the setting. Teonna is brash, and has an attitude in dealing with authority, making it easy to imagine why she might be in disciplinary trouble. However, there is a coldness to her dismissal. This is an educational institution, a place to nurture young people, and yet Teonna is turned away without reason. Where is she to go? Peterson shoots the scene in a flurry a motion, mixing in close-up handheld shots with static ones obscured by foreground elements in order to achieve a “fly on the wall” sensation, as though we’re a fellow student witnessing this disruption.
This verité approach extends throughout the film, and is uniformly excellent. Peterson’s direction isn’t particularly flashy, but I’m convinced this is one of the best-directed shorts of the year—the ability to elicit such naturalistic performances while maintaining an engaging visual voice through decisions around blocking and shot flow is high-level stuff. The Florida Project was my favorite film of 2017, and I was frequently reminded of that film’s ability to be loose and allow for improvisation from its actors yet still produce bravura cinematic moments. It was a real “a-ha” sensation when researching Peterson to learn that she was an assistant on Sean Baker’s film, and credits that experience with being formative to her approach on East of the River, particularly in its casting of first-time actors.
The premise of a young woman being shut out of school has its roots in reality. A concept known as “school pushout”, co-screenwriter Eunnae is an advocate for youth in the D.C. who are subjected to this type of zero-tolerance discipline, and growing research suggests that the practice has a deleterious effect on student outcomes, pushing them into the criminal system. Drawing from Eunnae’s experiences and the book “Pushout” by Monique Morrison, Peterson hoped to dramatize the phenomenon in order to contribute empathy to a conversation that can be dominated by sociological work and statistics. Teonna is at a fragile moment in her development—a turning point where several paths are available to her, the complexity of their navigation compounded by her own emerging womanhood and sexuality. She wants an education, but her day out illuminates these alternate paths: from the aimless delinquency of Malik, to the suggested sex work her former classmate Sara engages in. The film in this way reminds us of another short we are quite fond of, Ben Kallam’s Red Folder, in how it suggests the danger of a young person’s loss of faith in educational institutions, where their perceived “truth” is delivered outside of the classroom and on the streets.
Like a fellow filmmaker featured recently, A.V. Rockwell, Peterson’s career is on an indie-world fast-track. East of the River was her graduate film from CalArts, and she’s been busy ever since. She recently directed her original series debut, Shook, executive-produced by the Duplass Brothers, and her proposed debut feature film took part in this year’s Sundance Creative Producing Lab as well as the IFP Project Forum. Via the sizable “Through Her Lens” grant, she is also working on another short film. Entitled Champ, it follows a young basketball player who has an unwanted encounter with her coach. Both projects sound enticing, and they, as well as the talent demonstrated here, indicate that Peterson is someone whose work we will continue to hear about for a long time to come.