Minutes before we begin filming every Thought Leadership interview, someone from The Update team offers our guest a prepositioned glass of water. This Wednesday, none of us had prepared a cup. But that didn’t matter. When Marc Silver walked into the room, cap on head, he pulled his own water bottle out of his backpack.
This was a ready-for-anything type. The guy who’s lived it all. Or almost.
Marc Silver is an award-winning British filmmaker, director of photography and creative producer. His field is social justice documentaries. This has taken him all over the world, from bumpy, improvised car rides to international peace talks in Cuba.
He would explain to us later on that his projects aren’t simple pieces of journalism, they don’t just communicate information on a given topic. Everything he does, every shot and every angle contains meaning and personality and emotion. Silver exposes the larger problems in our societies through single stories, achieving this in both “Who is Dayani Crystal?” and “3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets”.
The first, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Festival, attempted to reassemble the life of an unknown man who was found dead in Sonora Desert, Arizona. By doing so, it highlighted the devastating dehumanization of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the US-Mexican border.The film received awards at Sundance, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, the Social Impact Media Awards and from Amnesty International.
The second, “3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets”, was broadcasted on HBO and shortlisted for an Academy Award. Silver followed the story of Jordan Davis, an African American teenager who was shot and killed by the White Michael Dunn. Underlying the narrative of the crime and trial is the exposé of racial bias and, as Silver’s website writes, “the subjectivity of Florida’s Stand Your Ground self defense laws.”
The Update is honored to have sat down with the incredibly gifted and conscientious Marc Silver.
The Update 