Our work was the reaction to that notion. We knew the kinds of people using drugs and we knew the cops, too.īrent: There’s so much judgement and analysis on people who use drugs in our culture and on social media and cable news. That allowed us to jump in and immerse ourselves in a way we were comfortable. How familiar were you with the meth before making the film and what was your initial plans for shooting?Ĭraig: We knew the characters here, the people, the landscape very well. The sons were selling.īrent: Around that time, we went back to the burn unit in Memphis and there were very few kids with burns from meth labs. Our friend recommended we talk with the Converses. But then around 2013 or 2014, a friend of ours – a cop in Arkansas – said he was busting former meth cooks selling ICE for the Mexican cartels. The American meth industry collapsed almost overnight. But the doctors said, “No, most of these kids are victims of meth lab explosions.”Ĭraig: In 2010, states started banning over the counter pseudoephedrine – a key ingredient in making meth. Growing up in Arkansas, that seemed plausible to me. Many of the parents had the same stories of burning trash in their yards and then their kids coming up and throwing gasoline on the fire. Why did you decide to make this documentary?īrent: Several years ago, we were working on a story in a burn unit in Memphis, Tennessee, where most of the patients were kids with burns on their hands and faces. Here, Rolling Stone talks with Brent and Craig Renaud about filming the Converse family and DEA agents, and what they’ve learned about meth dealers and users in the South. “And in the environment that these kids were raised in I don’t know if they had an opportunity not to be involved.” “Dope is just a common everyday part of life,” he adds. Now we’re seeing 20 to 30 to 40 pound shipments on a weekly basis.” At the Van Buren County Detention Center, Johnny says that he’s worked long enough with Sheriff Scott Bradley ( since resigned) that “we’ve arrested people’s parents and now we’re arresting their kids and sometimes even their grandkids.” “When it was backyard labs, it was just local people making small amounts. “This central Arkansas area is where the cartel mainly focuses and brings in the large amounts of methamphetamine,” Johnny says in the film. The Renauds also embed with Johnny Sowell, a compassionate Arkansas DEA agent who takes them on raids for Operation ICE STORM, an investigation resulting in dozens of arrests and large-scale seizures of meth and firearms in Clinton and Van Buren counties. There are no jobs here, especially since Walmart moved on, and residents seem chained to a life of poverty, addiction, and dealing to support their habits. The 96-minute film follows DEA agents and police fighting against cartels, local dealers and users and their families in central Arkansas. The dramatic chase is a taste of the gritty documentary, directed by Brent and Craig Renaud, which premieres on HBO on November 27th. “Over the last decade law enforcement has virtually shut down American meth production…Into the void have rushed Mexican cartels flooding the US with a cheaper more pure super meth called ‘ICE’.” “Show me your fucking hands.”īold white letters fill the screen for background. “Get on the ground,” the trooper yells outside his vehicle, his firearm drawn and aimed at an unseen man. A trooper drives his cruiser into the left tail of the fleeing Toyota Coppola and forces the suspect to swerve left, veer right, and roll three times into a ditch. When the National Guard from our home state of Arkansas deployed to Iraq, one of us went along and one remained with families calls home were filmed from both perspectives.In the opening scene of the new documentary Meth Storm, DEA agents and Arkansas State Troopers pursue an alleged associate of Mexican cartels down a rural stretch of road. To make Dope Sick Love for HBO, we took turns living for days at a time on the street with two heroin-addicted couples, ferrying in fresh camera batteries. We worked in Haiti, in Juárez, and in a Chicago high school for kids who had been kicked out of every other school. Our projects were always driven by characters, people who did not have a voice and found themselves in extreme situations. We worked with Alpert for years and, after 9/11, often in conflict zones. Before long, I’d moved from Oregon to Brent’s New York apartment, sleeping on a lawn chair until it broke. At the time, my big brother Brent had fallen in love with documentary film and was interning at Jon Alpert’s Downtown Community Television Center. I studied anthropology in college, and was living with an Indigenous tribe in Costa Rica when I realized I wished I had a camera.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |