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Film explores disaster through the eyes of children

By Loren Keller

Nearly 2,000 school-aged children living in the Corridor were displaced by the June flooding, according to a recent analysis of census data. In Cedar Rapids, the disaster forced the closure of Taylor Elementary School and has left administrators and parents scrambling to find classroom space more than 1,000 homeless students. Statewide, nearly 50 public school districts reported flood damage.

So “Katrina’s Children,” a feature-length documentary told entirely from the point of view of 19 children from New Orleans who were affected by the deadly 2005 hurricane, may hit close to home for audiences who see it at the Landlocked Film Festival in Iowa City this weekend.

The film, directed by New Yorker Laura Belsey, is scheduled for a 12:15 p.m. screening Saturday in the Johnson Room of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Iowa City. (View the film's trailer here.)

“There are definitely parallels,” Belsey says over the phone from New Orleans, where she has returned to shoot updates on the documentary that will be posted online. “I feel like people in Iowa can probably really relate, because a disaster’s a disaster.”

Belsey began filming the documentary in May 2006, about nine months after the storm devastated her native city. The healing process—physically for the city and emotionally for its residents—has been slow going but steady, she reports.

“Some are exactly in the same circumstances, some neighborhoods are getting a bit better, some are totally fine,” she says. “There’s still so much to be done in New Orleans. That’s one of the reasons we came back.”
Belsey says the emotional states of the children she interviewed were as varied as the city’s recovering neighborhoods.

“Some of them were clinically depressed for well over a year afterward, to a point where it was just hard for them to wake up in the morning. I asked one little girl how she dealt with her feelings and she just said, ‘I sleep. I feel better when I’m not awake thinking about things,’” Belsey says. “But what’s great about kids is their resilience and their ways of coping. They delve into a kind of magical world and that helps in their healing process.”

Much of that is evident in drawings the filmmaker asked the kids to complete, several of which have been animated for the documentary.

“Some kids drew their Katrina experiences, some of them complete with horrific details – the Superdome and people being killed and the shootings. Some of the other kids’ drawings were quite magical and very heroic,” she says. “They have this almost mythological view of the world and play is really important to kids. It’s a child’s way of working, and that’s how they work through things.”

The documentary may be upsetting for smaller children but is appropriate for kids ages 12 and up, she says.

“This is their current history, and I think it’s important for kids to hear from other kids what happened. Compassion is something that can be cultivated. Just hearing it from another kid might just open another kid to just an awareness of this historical event that happened on their watch.”

The documentary premiered at a Miami film festival in March; DVD copies are for sale on the film’s web site. Belsey hopes the film will connect with kids as well as remind adults that New Orleans remains a city in recovery.

“The film is funny in parts, it’s entertaining. It isn’t just 83 minutes of being depressed. Kids are just naturally funny,” she says.

“And it’s an eye-opener for the parents, because they’re not aware of what’s going on inside a child’s mind, even though you’re really close to them and see them every day they don’t always tell you really what they’re seeing or feeling. This is a great way of discussing things.”