women in film
PERFECT FOR
A MULTI-TASKER
T
he daughter of a “camera geek,”
Montana native Kimberly Reed grew
up fascinated with film. “Starting in
junior high, I convinced
teachers to let me make
films instead of writing
papers,” she says. She
majored in the humani-
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER OF THE
ties at the University of
DOCUMENTARY DARK MONEY
California-Berkeley, then
earned a master’s degree
in film at San Francisco State University.
She wrote about the digital revolution for
DV [Digital Video] Magazine, but found
herself wishing she could work on the
projects about which she was reporting.
Her first feature-length documentary was
Prodigal Sons, about her return to Montana
as a transgender woman. She produced and
edited Paul Goodman Changed my Life,
about the influential public intellectual, and
produced The Death and Life of Marsha P.
Johnson, about the early transgender pioneer.
Dark Money will be released in theaters by
PBS Distribution this summer, followed by
a national broadcast on PBS’ documentary
series POV this fall.
“It was born of frustration, when I heard
about the 2010 Citizens United decision,” she
says. “It basically said that corporations are
people and that money is speech, and if you
can’t constrain the First Amendment rights of
corporations, then we have to allow them to
give unlimited money to political campaigns.
You could see how power and influence
would be consolidated into fewer and richer
hands, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Reed knew that a story about money and
FOLLOWING THE MONEY After the Citizens United decision, filmmaker Kimberly Reed
politics could sound dry and technical, so she
spent six years exploring its effects.
personalized her film by covering the attempts
of her high school friend, Montana’s attorney
general, to challenge and overturn the case, as
well as the investigative efforts of Montanan
Reed senses that being a woman makes her more approachable as a filmmaker.
reporter John S. Adam. The film followed
“I don’t want to generalize, but maybe women are a little better at picking up on
multiple election cycles over six years, which
cues,” she says. “Interviewing people for documentaries is a very subtle thing. It’s a
“allowed us to tell the story of how this shell
challenge
to make people comfortable in front of a camera. Until you do that, the
game works,” she says. “The money that goes
scenes
don’t
come together.” This can be especially challenging, she says, when
into campaigns isn’t just unlimited. It’s anony-
you’re multi-tasking as she must often do in her multiple roles.
mous, and it comes from overseas.” Now a
Women tend to be well-represented as documentary producers, she says.
Newark resident, she credits her status as a
“Maybe it’s the planning and organizing aspect of it, but for some reason I see
fourth-generation Montanan with getting the
more women doing it than men. Probably because it’s thankless!”
access needed to make her movie.
KIMBERLY REED
ON WOMEN IN FILM
>
MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE MAY 2018
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