MnIndy interview: Danny Glover and Carl Deal on their Hurricane Katrina documentary

Two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Kimberly Rivers Roberts bought a cheap video camera to record family events and, if she captured anything good, say a police beating, sell it to a news crew. But as Carl Deal, a director of the new documentary Trouble the Water, tells MnIndy, she soon found herself recording her own harrowing experiences trying to survive one of the country’s most tragic disasters. Her footage shot before, during and after Katrina is now a pivotal part of Deal’s film, which is screening at Minneapolis’ Lagoon Cinema.

While the film is specifically about the experiences of Kimberly, an aspiring rap artist, and her husband Scott, it also provides a rare glimpse of what Deal calls “all the Katrinas” poor people, like those in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, face. “It’s not about extreme weather; it’s about extreme poverty,” he says.

Presented with support of executive producer Danny Glover and directed produced by Deal and Tia Lessin (who were behind Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine), the film won the 2008 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Listen: Actor/producer Danny Glover talks about the movie’s impact

Listen: Carl Deal discusses poverty and how the film came to be