Lee Anne Schmitt on "Evidence"

"Back to selectionFor documentary essayist Lee Anne Schmitt, her latest feature Evidence is, artistically speaking, both a concerted continuation and marked departure. On the one hand, it furthers her career-long penchant for braiding political rhetoric, environmental portraits and American mythology; on the other, it filters these observations through a distinctly personal lens, even featuring a rare on-screen appearance for the director."

"The film opens with Schmitt showcasing an impressive collection of dolls, childhood gifts that her father brought back from frequent international business trips. Their national diversity and craftsmanship is impressive-most adorn traditional garb, some possess the ability to blink-yet they all translate the devotion of an otherwise physically absent father. However, Schmitt has more of a gripe with the company he was representing than the fact that he was constantly away."

Lee Anne Schmitt uses her personal archive of internationally sourced dolls to examine familial absence and the moral complications of inherited connection. The dolls originate from a father who led international operations for the John M. Olin Foundation, a munitions and chemicals manufacturer with a long record of environmental harm. The foundation's funding targeted predominantly Black, Brown, and impoverished communities' locations and underwrote conservative causes including judicial appointments and controversial texts like The Bell Curve. The work draws a throughline between corporate philanthropy, ecological damage, and the spread of conspiratorial and fascistic rhetoric, arguing that institutional power shaped contemporary political and environmental crises.

Read at Filmmaker Magazine