“If the world is a dumpster fire, what’s your bucket of water?” That’s the question that has guided Tr’Vel Lyons through the precarity and perseverance of being a young Black man in America.
BACKWARDS, SIDEWAYS, FORWARD is an observational documentary portrait of Tr’Vel Lyons, whose three decades of life exemplify the precarity and perseverance of being a young Black man in America. As a 12-year old boy, he narrowly escaped the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina and was forced to start a new life in Inglewood, CA. Now, as a respected scholar and professor of Critical Race Theory and DEI advocate, his life’s work is under assault. Undaunted, every Saturday he leads the We Still Sprint club, where Black and Brown folks sprint hills and forge community as part of Tr’Vel’s larger mission to “sustain Black life on the planet”. BSF also features footage from Land of Opportunity, Luisa Dantas’award-winning documentary about the early years of the post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding process in New Orleans, seen through the eyes of those on the frontlines, including a young Tr’Vel. In that film, we see him mature from a precocious, 12-year old boy to a thoughtful teenager, grappling with what it means to lose everything, while embracing a fresh start and new opportunities he never dreamed were possible. Throughout BSF, Tr’Vel is in dialogue with his younger self, watching -and in some cases, re-creating- moments from the original film, which has only grown in relevance as the 20th anniversary of Katrina looms large. His life thus far has been bookended by crisis and rebirth, and Tr’Vel must now decide what his “bucket of water” will be. As he moves through his multifaceted world-teaching young people how racism has shaped our reality; at home in LA and New Orleans engaging in complicated conversations with his family about their multigenerational legacy; and on the hills of LA, leading his community in joyous exhausting movement-this young Black man (and his childhood self) embodies the resistance and courage required to survive and thrive in this pivotal moment and beyond.
Luisa Dantas is a Brasilian-American multimedia storyteller whose work centers on race, place, and social justice. She has produced, written and directed narratives that span genres and modalities, including animated and live-action fiction and traditional and interactive documentary, that feature complex and nuanced protagonists from traditionally underrepresented communities. Her most recent film, Rip Tide, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival and has screened festivals around the world. She also wrote and co-directed MINE, an animated web series about an unraveling utopian community set in the near future, premiered at the Tribeca film festival and won best web series at American Black Film Festival. Luisa also served as the director and Executive Producer for Rise-Home Stories, an innovative storytelling project funded by the Ford Foundation, which brings together artists and advocates from all over the country to collaboratively harness the power of narrative in the fight for housing, land, and racial justice. The award-winning project includes an animated web series, children’s book, non-fiction podcast, interactive site, and video game that have engaged multigenerational audiences around the world.
