Film Fresh

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and 2008 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature, this astonishingly powerful documentary about Hurricane Katrina is at once horrifying and inspiring. The day before the storm makes landfall, 24-year-old aspiring rap artist Kimberly Roberts turns a Hi-8 video camera on herself, her husband Scott and their neighbors stranded in New Orleans. "It's going to be a day to remember,' she says as the winds howl. With no means to evacuate, she records their harrowing ordeal when the nearby levee fails and deadly floodwaters engulf their home and community. Directors/producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal (producers of FAHRENHEIT 9/11) open the film with this chilling footage, and follow the couple's two-year journey as they face armed soldiers, bungling bureaucrats and an uncertain future. TROUBLE IN THE WATER tells a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes-two unforgettable people who survive the disaster and then seize a chance for a new beginning.