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Herman's House

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Herman's House
Directed byAngad Singh Bhalla
Produced byEd Barreveld
Loring McAlpin
Lisa Valencia-Svensson
StarringJackie Sumell
Herman Wallace
CinematographyIris Ng
Edited byRicardo Acosta
Music byKen Myhr
Production
company
Storyline Entertainment
Distributed byFirst Run Features
Release date
Running time
80 minutes
CountriesCanada
United Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish

Herman's House is a documentary film, directed by Angad Singh Bhalla and released in 2012.[1] An American, British and Canadian coproduction, the film profiles Herman Wallace, a member of the Angola Three who had been in prison for over 40 years after his shorter prison term for bank robbery was extended with a disputed conviction for a murder he did not commit, and Jackie Sumell, a conceptual artist who has launched a project of building the dream house Wallace wishes he could live in if he is ever released from prison.[2]

Wallace is never shown in the film, and instead is heard only in recorded telephone conversations with Sumell.[3]

Distribution

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The film premiered at the 2012 True/False Film Festival,[4] and had its Canadian premiere at the 2012 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.[2]

It was broadcast in July 2013 as an episode of the PBS documentary series POV.[5]

Awards

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Bhalla was the winner of the Magnus Isacsson Award at the 2012 Montreal International Documentary Festival.[6]

The film was a Donald Brittain Award nominee for best social or political documentary at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards in 2014.[7] Ricardo Acosta was nominated for Best Editing in a Documentary Program or Series, and Ken Myhr received a nomination for Best Music for a Non-Fiction Program or Series.

The film won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Arts and Culture Programming at the 2014 News and Documentary Emmy Awards.[8]

Legacy

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Following Wallace's death of cancer in late 2013, Bhalla and digital media producer Ted Biggs created the interactive documentary project The Deeper They Bury Me: A Call from Herman Wallace, which was based around Wallace's time in solitary confinement, for the National Film Board of Canada.[9]

References

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  1. ^ Mark Jenkins, "Building A Home For A Client Who Can't Live In It". NPR, April 18, 2013.
  2. ^ a b Kevin Ritchie, "Hot Docs 2012: Reimagining the prison flick with Herman’s House". Playback, May 3, 2012.
  3. ^ Stephen Holden, "Dreams From His Cell". The New York Times, April 18, 2013.
  4. ^ Hannah Spaar, "T/F Review: Herman's House". Vox Magazine, March 2, 2012.
  5. ^ Fausto Giovanny Pinto, "PBS to air documentary on NY artist's project". Newsday, July 7, 2013.
  6. ^ T'Cha Dunlevy, "A fitting finale for late director Magnus Isacsson; Weeks before his death he was happily involved". Montreal Gazette, November 23, 2012.
  7. ^ Manori Ravindran, "'Watermark,' 'My Prairie Home' up for Canadian Screen Awards". RealScreen, January 13, 2014.
  8. ^ Julianna Cummins, "NFB, Herman’s House win Emmy Awards". Playback, October 1, 2014.
  9. ^ Lauren Wissot, "An Interactive Journey Through Solitary Confinement: 'The Deeper They Bury Me: A Call from Herman Wallace'". Global Comment, October 23, 2015.
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