Milwaukee Film’s third annual Dialogues Documentary Festival is Sept. 24-27. More than 30 documentaries are showing at the Downer Theater and Oriental Theater.
One of the features is "Heavy is the Crown." The film follows Milwaukee activist Vaun Mayes and other community organizers as they work to spread positivity, despite challenges with violence, inequity, and strained police-community relations.
Mayes tells WUWM’s Race & Ethnicity Reporter Teran Powell why he was motivated to participate in the documentary as a co-producer.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Vaun Mayes: This process has been over 5 years. It essentially came together with the idea that I had. I've been in a number of documentaries and films. I was in the BBC documentary that came out.
I was in "Invisible Lines," a couple other things. But one of the things that I noticed is when you don't own or control those images and those things that come out, people can craft them and use them how they want, right? And it doesn't benefit the people that were involved or that they leave behind, right? And so I wanted to, one, take control of our story and our narrative, and have that benefit us in a number of ways.
A lot of that stuff that has come out, it's usually super dark, sad stuff, negative stuff. And so I wanted to kind of tackle those different things. [I] came across during the George Floyd protests, Sean Kafer, who is a professor; he's over doc|UWM, and kind of brought this idea to him.
I had a pitched it before to a number of people, just kind of telling them I wanted to do a film. He had taken a lot of video and pictures along the protests. So, I went to him with it and what he did was brought his class, his students [to help.]
One of the things that they revealed that I didn't know, and then realized, was over 50 students had been part of this film — as far as editing, filming, different things like that. So, yeah it was a super long process. We kind of put a lot of faith in each other.
Teran Powell: The 2016 unrest in Sherman Park following the police killing of Sylville Smith is included in the film. And you get into the conversation of racism that exists in the police department which contributes to how police engage with the community. What do you think is probably one or two of the biggest hang-ups that keeps police and particularly the Black community from getting on the same page?
Well, I think we've made a lot of progress that people don't see, but they do see it, right? They just don't realize that that has been part of the change that has come from the work and the relationships that have been built.
And I can name some of those things, but like I've literally seen shifts in certain situations that were always volatile, right? I think that what has not been done is, you know, again, the police are part of a system, a historic system, and the same way of like racism in general, folks now don't want to hear about that and they don't want to address it.
It's a lot of like, "that has nothing to do with me." But it does, because you're still acting and and contributing and benefiting from these same things, and you don't want to acknowledge that.
And I think the community has been always in a position where yes, you may have some folks who acknowledge some of these things, but on a level that will be impactful and that that matters, I don't think we've gotten to that place where, you know — I mean the country and the nation has kind of taken that stance of like, yes, this happened, yes, this is wrong, let's figure out how to correct and atone for that and then we can move forward, right?
We've never had that. Even in the conversations we've had, these are individuals and groups and different like sects of officers and you know, people like that in these conversations that are part of this and it's still not, you know, the larger folks on the department still think how they think, right? They may just get a directive to do this different or handle this a certain different way. But again, those a lot of those mindsets are still the same.
Like, it was so crazy to me because one, you had detectives on scenes, right? Saying these things, and I'm like, "This person has a job on the police department." And they're openly saying this is how they feel about this community. That's a problem. Even for somebody who has had conversations or is in the midst of those, building those relationships, it's difficult to still navigate those things.
And then for them, you have groups that again aren't really coming to the table or coming to the conversation in a way of openness or in a way of like, you know, we want to kind of build that same relationship and affect change. It's more of just every time they come they're hollerin' at you, they're yelling and and it's really no middle ground or no compromise, right?
So, I think that is been one of the biggest hang-ups of having those historic, dug-in kind of sides where people don't want to come up off of that.
Another theme for from the film was the focus on youth and wanting to hear from them about what they need. And I want to just take a moment to hear from you about what you continue to notice that the youth are asking for, what they're not getting.
There's that saying "there's nothing new under the sun," but even in things being the same, they are far different. For instance, like I said, resources back when I was a young people, even though I wasn't exposed to a lot of them, we had certain things, right? That's kind of true now, but really at an extreme, right? So, you either have stuff that's for them or it's really nothing for them.
So, right now, most youth-serving organizations only want to work with youth C-average and above. All those other kids that need the help and attention and resources, they don't want to deal with them. They actually shun them and they do what they can to avoid them.
And so, being a young person that was in that position — homeless teenager, growing up in the streets, catching cases, still trying to navigate school, you know, growing up in group homes — I know what it's like to be that population of kids, right?
So, that experience helps guide the work that we do. But then also always having those conversations. I listen to them. So, I know I'm reinforced by what I already know. When I didn't have food, what did I do? I went to stores and I stole food.
And so, understanding those things definitely reinforces and guides our programming, and always allowing them a platform.
We give a platform whether you are straight-A student or whether you just got out of jail and you got a bracelet on. Very few people did that for me, and a lot of what I'm doing now is like trying to carry that on and pay it forward.
What do you want people to get from seeing this documentary?
When you hear about Milwaukee every day, whether it's social media, whether it's the news, you're going to see 90% of just negative stuff, right? The worst of the worst that's happening. But what you're not seeing is the stuff that you see in this film; you're not seeing these groups coming together doing this work.
So if you want to go somewhere and you want to see some positive, unified community-driven family-friendly stuff, if you wanted to see that stuff, you could see that stuff, right? It's just that you have to want to kind of look outside of your norm to connect and find these different people and places and and organizations that are doing stuff. I want people to know that this is Milwaukee.
So, just showing them a different side of our city that's super beautiful, that's super, you know, inspirational. I want people to take a better breath-of-fresh-air look at Milwaukee.
"Heavy is the Crown" is showing at 4:30 pm on Sunday, Sept. 27 at the Oriental Theater.
Milwaukee Film is a financial supporter of WUWM.
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