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We're back with another edition of The
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jasinski,

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culture editor here at The Federalist.
As always, you can email the show

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at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST.

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Make sure to subscribe wherever you download
your podcasts, and to the premium

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version of our website as well.
Today we are joined by the code director

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of a fascinating film called Missing in
Brooks County. Jeff Bmiss co directed that

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movie. It just won a Peabody
Award and we're excited to dig into it.

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You actually may have seen it on
PBS's Independent Lens where it aired back

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in twenty twenty two. It is
out streaming now. I highly recommend it.

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Jeff, thanks for joining us.
Thank you, Emily. Since it's

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your first time on the show,
could you start just by giving us a

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little bit of background about yourself,
how you got involved in filmmaking, and

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then how you ended up making this
particular film, Missing in Brooks County.

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Well, my background is in scripted
filmmaking. I went to USC Film School

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and I kind of got into documentary
along the way, and I met my

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co director on this project, Lisa
Malamott at Trinity College in Hartford, where

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we were both teaching. She was
I think I kind of ended up taking

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her job as she moved on out
to Arizona where she is now. So

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I teach and right now I've been
lately making documentary films. Lisa and I

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got started on this project from an
audio documentary that was on the radio and

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it was an interview with a forensic
scientist at Baylor University named Lorie Baker.

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And I was just really moved by
the piece, and I reached out to

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Lisa and asked if she'd be interested
in working on some thing, and that's

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how it started. Laurie invited us
out to Texas and she took us down

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to this place called Fulfiias, Texas
that we've never heard of. We we

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thought we were going to the border, and she said, oh no,

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no, that's We're seventy miles from
the border. This is Brooks County.

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It's not even a border county,
but this is where the problem is.

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And that was the beginning of a
four year odyssey to capture what was happening

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in Brooks County. And you know, my next question was actually going to

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be tell US a little bit about
Brooks County, and from the film,

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it's it's my understanding that actually a
checkpoint being in Brooks County is critical to

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its place, not just in this
film, but in you know, that

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question of what happens after you cross
right, So again it is this is

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not a county that is on the
border, and this checkpoint is what they

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call an interior checkpoint, an immigration
checkpoint. And being someone who lives in

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the Northeast, I didn't even know
we had such things in the United States

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before this film. Even though we
have over a hundred of them all across

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the US. They're not all fixed
like this when some of them move around,

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but two thirds of the US population
live inside at checkpoint zone because it

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extends one hundred miles from all international
and coastal boundaries, and it's a it's

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an artifact of a relatively obscured nineteen
seventies Supreme Court decision, and it's it's

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had all kinds of unintended consequences,
such as causing the deaths that you see

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in the film, and yet it's
never been re examined, and it has

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hit Brooks County very hard because this
is the busiest immigration checkpoint in the country

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and it's it's right in Brooks County, so you know, it's essentially turned

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Brooks County into a massive open grave
where people are dying on these vast ranches

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because they try to circumvent the checkpoint, right, okay, um, And

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if you if you could tell us
about so the story of the film is

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really powerful, I think because it
zooms in on these particular individuals, and

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people should of course see the film
to get the full story and obviously the

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of visual and the filmmaking that advances
those narratives. But if you could tell

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us us a little bit about since
you spend so much time intimately following these

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cases, talking to family members about
the ones that you follow in the film,

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that would be great. We there's
um, I guess there's mainly two

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families that are highlighted in the film. One of them the Roman family.

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They they lost their son or other
Omero Roman, who had been brought to

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the US at five years old,
and then at thirty one years old,

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after a traffic stop, he got
deported and to a country that he didn't

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even remember, and he just couldn't
he just couldn't acclimate in Mexico. He

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wanted to. He missed his family, and so he decided to come back

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across the border in a clandestine crossing
with a smuggler, and something happened along

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the way and he went missing.
And he's still missing, and his family,

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you know, they keep hope that
he's somehow alive somewhere, but they're

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still searching for him. And we
met the Roman family because we had started

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filming and we put up a little
website called with what we thought was a

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temporary title missing in Brooks County,
And meanwhile, the relatives of Omero were

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searching using those terms missing in Brooks
County in Texas, and our site came

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up. They contacted us and we
asked them. We had a meeting with

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them in Texas over coffee. We
said, look, you know, this

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is what we're doing. Would you
be interested in sharing Omera's story in your

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story? And they went and had
a family meeting and they came back and

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very bravely said yes, we want
Omera's story to be a part of your

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film. Had to have been very, very difficult for them, but I

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think I think it is the Ramond
family that says, at one point they

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believe any publicity, anything might be
helpful to finding him. Am I remembering

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correctly? It was them, or
at least some of the folks you talked

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to, said we want this because
it might help find him. Yes.

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They. One thing that working on
this film has taught me is that I

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believe having someone having a loved one
missing is perhaps the worst thing there is.

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I think it's actually worse in many
ways than when someone dies, because

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if someone dies, there can be
a ceremony, there can be closure where

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you can at least try to pick
up the pieces and move on. But

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when someone goes missing, if you
love them, you're never able to close

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the door. It's just an unending, infinite grief. The missing never never

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die, and yet they never come
home. So, as improbable as it

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may sound, the Roman family hopes
that Omero is still somewhere alive. And

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that's one of the tragedies of what's
happening, and it's it is portrayed in

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the film. There's sort of two
elements to this tragedy. One is when

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someone's actively missing and there might be
a chance of a rescue or to try

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to prevent this from happening. But
the other end of it is what you

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see with the forensic sciences Kate Spradley
in the film, many people who have

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been found, their remains have been
found, were just buried with no DNA

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taken, no chance of ever being
identified, and their families to this day

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wonder what happened to them. So
Katie's on a mission to exhume every set

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of migrant remains in South Texas,
identify them, and get them back to

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their Family's unbelievable. And on that
question, I wanted to also ask his

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family holds out hope that he's alive
somewhere. And there are certainly cases of

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kidnappings, but the vast majority of
people who run into trouble in places like

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Brooks County, if they're missing,
they likely are not alive. Could you

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talk to us a little bit about
what happens when people try to circumvent the

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checkpoint? Where do things go wrong
for them? How does how do these

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tracks through the desert results in death
in missing persons cases that so many of

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them that we have right now.
So this checkpoint is part of a policy

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called prevention through deterrence that was put
in place by the Clinton administration. Who

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I would say that policy is most
responsible for these deaths of any administration.

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And what happens is people are driven
to within a certain range of the checkpoint

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and then they're taken out of the
vehicles and they're led through these inhospitable branches.

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This terrain is very dangerous terrain around
the checkpoints, and there's several ways

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that people can become lost and succumb
to the elements. One way is simply

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they can't keep up where they twist
an ankle. These smugglers do not their

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cartel members. Basically they all work
for the cartels these days, and they

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will not wait for them. So
they're lucky if the smuggler even makes a

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nine one one call, because they
don't want to divulge their routes. And

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so another way is if they're intercepted
by border patrol, who does chase people

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through the desert, or another group
like the group you see in the film

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that's sort of a kind of a
vigilante group that supports the efforts of the

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Border Patrol, the Texas Port of
Volunteers. If if a group is intercepted,

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they'll scatter, they'll run, and
they get lost, and it is

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very easy to get lost out there
and then they'll eventually, you know,

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they could succumb to all kinds of
things, dehydration, heat strokes, snake

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bite. I mean, it's it's
just not a hospitable place to be.

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And that speaks to something I imagine
you heard from different people you talked to,

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that the desperation. It's not as
though people undertake these journeys without understanding

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the risks involved. In fact,
they know what brings them to the point

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where they say, you know,
I am actually going to not only am

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I going to make this crossing,
I'm going to pay to make this crossing,

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I'm going to pay for the risk
of possible death. It's an irresistible

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question to ask after seeing this film. And just to be clear, none

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of this is really in the film. This is kind of outside the scope

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of the film. But you know, the people we talked to, I

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think could fairly be described as refugees. I mean, I think most of

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them these days, they do fit
the definition. I think what people tend

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to say is often I am coming
to the US for a better life.

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But that's a loaded phrase these days. And when I've talked a lot of

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immigration attorneys as well as and they'll
say yeah, But once you get to

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know people and hear their stories,
you'll find out there's actually something much much

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deeper there. A better life often
means I just want to live because there's

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violence. There's you know, drug
this force recruitment, gang recruitment is a

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lot of drug drug violence. There's
these days, there's climate displacement, and

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there's crushing poverty. I mean to
a point where people don't know where their

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next meal is coming from. So
a lot of people are fleeing for their

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lives frankly, and they do know
this as risky, but at least they

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have a chance, and they feel
that at home, they stay in their

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current situation, they have no chance. Yeah. This was one of the

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things. One of my big tape
takeaways from going to um this I think

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we started in Matamoros and then to
Rainosa last year, was talking to some

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of the Haitian migrants who had lived
in Brazil or Argentina or even like Tijuana

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for years. After the earthquake,
they fled and so many of them were

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willing to camp on the streets of
rain Nosa under extremely dangerous conditions or cartel

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kidnappings and murders left and right because
they wanted to be in America. They

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loved America. Actually, they said
they wanted the American dream. And it's

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so hard. I think we take
for granted, you know what it's like

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just just south of our border.
And in the case of Amarrow, he

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had been in the United States,
he had seen the contrast, and that

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must have been very powerful for him. Yes, he was. I mean,

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he was raised as if he were
an American citizen, which he was

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not. He didn't have the documentation. He was five years old when he

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was brought to the US. But
this was his world. And he did

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have some distant relatives in Mexico and
he was happy to see them and they

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were happy to see him. But
he just couldn't adjust and he really missed

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his immediate family. So he made
a decision to come back to the US.

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You know, I was talking with
an immigration attorney recently and they said

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that they're going right now. To
be smuggled is fifteen thousand dollars. On

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average, you get three attempts,
and it's to a point where what we've

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heard from Border Patrol is that these
transnational criminal organizations who run the smuggling operations

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are now making as much money smuggling
people as they are drugs. I mean,

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it's just these figures are staggering.
You mentioned that it actually comes up

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a couple of times in the film
itself, these Clinton era policies, And

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it's so rare that people actually talk
about the immigration policies under Bill Clinton.

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I mean, we hear a lot
about Reagan, we hear a lot about

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Bush, the second here actually a
lot about Obama. But are there some,

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including the Clinton policies you just mentioned, policies that are directly sort of

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upstream of what you saw in Brooks
County. And just again to be clear,

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you know, the film is not
political. It's a human story and

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it really doesn't it doesn't get near
any of this stuff. But it is

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again a question, a natural question. I think. You know, when

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you look at immigration right now in
the headlines, it looks one way,

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it looks kind of it breaks down
fairly stereotypically left and right. It's kind

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of what you expect, and that's
the rhetoric. But when you look historically

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at this issue, what's been what's
been done in terms of policy action,

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it's not that way at all.
It really challenges your notion of traditional left

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and right politics. So, like
you said, Reagan gave amnesty bill.

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Clinton's policies are probably most responsible for
these deaths that are occurring. You know,

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the only president to sign a bill
that took any responsibility for these deaths

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on behalf of the US government.
This is going to blow some people's minds.

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Is Donald Trump. I'm not saying
he was a friend to immigration or

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immigrants. But again, this issue, historically, it really does merge and

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blend left and right politics. This
is a bipartisan problem that we're having with

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these deaths right now, and so
the hope is that maybe there can be

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a bipartisan solution. Well, and
that's again one of the things that filmed

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us so well, I think is
give a try to think of the right

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way to put this a fair shake
in the sort of journalistic sense, to

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the vigilante group you described earlier,
some of their concerns, some of their

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motivations that might be good, that
might be bad, you know, even

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something as simple as the water being
left out on a ranch. Can you

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tell us a little bit about what
it was like to get in the minds

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and sort of gain the trust both
of law enforcement and the sort of self

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appointed law enforcement in law enforcement in
the volunteer groups. What was that like?

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Yeah, the Texas Ford of Volunteers. It's I think it turn us

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about three years of nagging them to
get invited on one of their operations.

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I'm not even clear that Mike Vickers, who is the sort of co founder

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and leader of that group that you
see in the film, has I assume

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he has seen the film. We
did show it and fell furious we invited

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him. He wasn't able to be
there. I guess some people have asked

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us, how did you get them? How did you get that access?

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Because it's kind of a condemning portrait
of them. But I don't see it

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that necessarily that way at all.
And I don't think doctor Vickers, he's

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a veterinarian. I don't think he
would see it that way either. I

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think he would watch him say,
yeah, you let me say my piece.

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That's how I feel, and now
everybody can see the truth. It's

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out there, you know, because
he's got his own worldview. And what

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we didn't want to do with the
film was make a rant. I mean

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it's we wanted to treat the audience
like they're intelligent, they're capable of making

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up their own mind about what kind
of country they want to have. But

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in order to do that, you
have to witness. You just have to

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see what's going on. So we
wanted this film to be a three hundred

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and sixty degree portrait of what's happening
in Brooks County and then real quick about

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the Border Patrol. Law enforcement has
a lot of screen time, and the

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people we were out with were actually
a division of Border Patrol called Border Star,

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and that's the search and rescue division. I think they come out of

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the film actually fairly well. But
what we noticed were most of the Border

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Patrol people we talked to, they
were really decent people doing a very difficult

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job, and a lot of them
were suffering from PTSD from these deaths from

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dealing with them and to notify families
m I want to ask more about that.

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I do want to say, I
think that's interesting because I come from

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a very conservative perspective on immigration reform
in general, and I thought the depiction

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of the kind of vigilante group was
very balanced and very fair. So it's

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funny that other people had a different
outlook on that because of the nuance between

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both camps really comes out, and
that's where it's most interesting. Anyway,

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tell us more about Border Patrol,
especially the search and rescue unit, that

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you were able to get so much
access to, about what they what they

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are confronting every day. And that's
one of the most powerful things of the

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film is that you actually have footage
of the scene when they're called to identify

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bodies, when they're called to the
desert to look at somebody with their backpack

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strew next to them. What are
they dealing with on a day to day

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basis in Brooks County, one of
agents of Border Patrol agents in the film,

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he has a line that I think
is pretty memorable. He says,

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you know, we don't call them
people anymore. We call them bodies.

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Because if you start calling them people, then it starts getting to And this

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was just one example of what we
we're hearing from agents that it is emotionally

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very hard to deal with the deaths
that they have to deal with. So

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what what Border Patrol has done is
they have created a division to try to

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rescue whatever migrants they can, and
so it's it's it's strange because it kind

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of creates a policy that's a little
bit in conflict with itself. It's almost

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like the right hand strikes and left
hand saves because a lot of the people

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who are immortal jeopardy, the migrants
are because it's because of the border patrol's

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tactics. You know, they've been
intercepted and they've scattered and they've gotten lost,

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and so then the other this other
division that's tries to say them.

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But that's an example of the fact
that some of these agents are actually coped

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having trouble coping with their job,
which to me is kind of a red

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flag that maybe something's really gone wrong
with the way that we're administering our border.

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What challenges were there to making this
film? I can imagine there are

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immense sort of just I mean on
emotional level, I can imagine how challenging

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it was. But is there anything
else? You know? What was were

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the roadblocks that came up as you
tried to document this? There were,

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I mean the first one that jumps
to mind is the terrain itself. I

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mean, it was challenging for a
filming environment. You know, we had

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our equipment often melted down, and
then at work and it's we sometimes had

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to take just the absolute minimum we
could pass because we had to carry water.

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The rest of it was water we
hadn't carry. Um there's ratle snakes,

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there was no I remember one day
asking the sheriff's deputy we were out

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on a ranch with in the middle
of nowhere, if we get bit by

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ral snake, where who has the
anti venom? Where do we go?

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And he just laughed. He said, there's no anti venom. Itelferious.

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You got to get on a helicopter. So it was a little it was

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a little daunting we had. We
did have our footage threatened at one point

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by the Department of Homeland Security.
They were actually pretty good to us overall,

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but we were We were under the
auspices of the Border Patrol most of

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the time when we were filming that
footage with those agents, but a couple

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of times it just it was like
a logistical thing. They couldn't approve us

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for that day, so we went
with a justice of the peace, which

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we can do. That's legal too. And when that happened, they didn't

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like it and they got bad.
But I would say that the hardest part

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of all was just the emotional part
of seeing all of that death and suffering,

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and for me, I think the
hardest part as we had a rule

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with the film we would not show
a deceased person who could be identified or

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had been identified without getting the family's
approval to do so. And there is

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one individual one in the film.
I don't want say too much about,

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you know, the turn of events, but I had to show the footage

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of his discovery to his father,
and you know, as someone who has

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a child, it's just something you
can't help put yourself in that place and

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seeing your child alone against a tree, it's very difficult. Oh my gosh,

284
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being you in that situation sense horrible, and that sounds like a life

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changing experience. Really, I want
to ask why you think it is that

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these stories get lost in the conversation
about immigration so often. It's such a

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surprising the degree to which people are
unaware, and through no fault of their

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own. I think it's probably the
faults of those of us in the media

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for not elevating these stories and making
them so central to the conversation. But

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why do you haven't having been on
the ground it put so much after four

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years, like you say, into
telling this story. Why do you think

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it is they so often get lost. The number of deaths that we use

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in the film is twenty thousand since
the advent of prevention through deterrence in nineteen

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ninety four. That is a very
conservative figure. I mean, there are

295
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some groups that put the number closer
to eighty thousand. The problem is that

296
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it's very it's a very hard account
to do because estimates are the vast majority

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are never found. Because of these
some of these ranches are bigger than the

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state of World Island. I mean, they're massive. I think if this

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death toll on American soil were the
result of a dramatic event, like a

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genocide or war, we could not
ignore it. But migration is quiet.

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It's invisible people, the unlucky people. They walk into the desert and they

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vanish, And I think it's really
hard to create a sense of urgency around

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that that would create the political will
to tackle it. And certainly it doesn't

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really grab your attention in the media. It's it's kind of a silent mass

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disaster. Yeah, you know,
the media has this famous and tragic saying,

306
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if it bleeds, it leads,
But in this case, it's it's

307
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almost because it doesn't From my perspective. It doesn't fit either side's narrative perfectly

308
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about the problem at hand. It's
it's just it doesn't advance either policy side

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perfectly. There's there's so much nuance. I guess I wonder if as you

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were undertaking this project, there was
anything that you felt you learned that challenged

311
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what you thought going into it,
or that maybe changed your mind on something.

312
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Yeah, well, the whole thing
was eye opening. Like I said,

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I didn't even know we had interior
immigration checkpoints where they can stop every

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car with no reasonable they can send
you to secondary, hold up for another

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twenty minutes, just just because So
that was an eye opener that we have

316
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that I didn't really understand how that
could be compatible with the Fourth Amendment.

317
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I had to throw a little digging
into that. I think also when I

318
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talked to Eddie Canalis about and again
this is not something that's in the film,

319
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but Eddie Canalis, who runs to
South Texas huit rsor he's the guy

320
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you see putting the walk are out, you know, for people who might

321
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need it. He likes to talk
about regularizing migration. That's what that's the

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word he uses. He says,
Look, you know we've got ten million

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open jobs. We're not letting very
many people come in to work. Instead,

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we're playing this catch me if you
can in the brush. And he

325
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said, that's just you know,
it's it's tragic, you know. And

326
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and he distinguishes between the smugglers that
are bringing people over, who are often

327
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gang members, cartel members, are
bringing drugs and stuff like that, and

328
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the migrants who are basically just coming
to join the labor force, and often

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they already have a friend or a
family member who's here. He makes a

330
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big distinction between those two. And
so his idea is, look, if

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you regularize migration and bring people in
in a safe and orderly way, but

332
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keep track of them, do background
checks, then it would reduce the traffic

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of clandestine crossings between ports of entry
to mostly the people that border patrol really

334
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wants to catch. It would make
their job a lot easier, like win,

335
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win win, And I had never
understood all the complexities of that until

336
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we got into this film. And
then of course the other one. I

337
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don't want to I'll just mention it
is the complexities of the part on Kate's

338
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:27,400
Bradley's side, I mean, that
is diabolical in its complexity with her trying

339
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to identify the deceased the exhumed remains
through DNA by making matches and databases,

340
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and all the challenges that she faces. I mean that she said herself,

341
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:45,200
it took her over two years to
even really wrap her head around how that

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system works or really doesn't work.
This might be a little bit of a

343
00:28:48,759 --> 00:28:55,160
pivot, but I'm always curious and
I love asking professional documentarians about the current

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documentary boom that it feels like we're
in. Obviously, PBSS has been very

345
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good about acquiring, distributing making documentaries. But from your perspective, especially as

346
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the streaming wave feels like it's cresting, although probably isn't. Um, what

347
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is the What has changed, if
anything major in you know that about the

348
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,119
task of making a documentary distributing a
documentary now that it seems like everybody is

349
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just constantly imbibing documentaries day in and
day out. Yeah, I do think

350
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a documentary is having a golden era
right now. People are watching them.

351
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Yeah, it's um um. I
will just say that for me as an

352
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independent filmmaker, one of the reasons
that I started making documentaries is scripted filmmaking

353
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can be prohibitively expensive, and sometimes
you find yourself waiting for investor to make

354
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decisions, and in that sense,
you're kind of waiting for permission to do

355
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work. One of the things and
I teach, by the way, I

356
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,200
teach filmmaking at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. One of the things I

357
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tell students is in documentary, if
you have a camera and you know how

358
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to turn it on, and you
have an idea, you can just get

359
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started and then somewhere along the way, when you have something to show,

360
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you can cut together some scenes.
Then you can maybe bring on partners that

361
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can support what you're doing. But
the budgets are lower, the stories can

362
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be just as compelling. We use
the same techniques storytelling and structuring for drama

363
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and suspense. I think if somebody
watches Missing New Brooks County, I think

364
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they'll find it can be quite a
suspenseful story. Yeah, but it's real.

365
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And that's what's kind of electric and
interesting about documentaries. I think today

366
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and you'll see them, you know, you see them on the home page

367
00:31:00,079 --> 00:31:03,960
Flix and Amazon. It's really something. Yeah. No, I agree.

368
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,640
Um, obviously we're talking in the
midst of a major writers strike. W

369
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:14,400
g A just joined the strike AI. They're very very legitimate concerns about AI

370
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:18,079
and how it's affecting the industry.
Is AI? Do you do you feel

371
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that it's going to have a really
serious, rapid effect on documentary filmmaking?

372
00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:30,480
What are the Are there any risks
there? I am not I'm not sure

373
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that I am informed enough to see
where AI is gonna impact documentary filmmaking.

374
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,920
I wouldn't be surprised. I think
it's going to impact a lot of things.

375
00:31:41,359 --> 00:31:45,680
I can definitely see where it's going
to impact scripted filmmaking for sure.

376
00:31:45,759 --> 00:31:52,480
I do think that it's always been
up to the filmmakers in documentary to be

377
00:31:52,559 --> 00:31:56,000
honest, you know, because AI
allows you to do all kinds of things.

378
00:31:56,079 --> 00:31:59,079
You can make somebody say things they
didn't say, and you can even

379
00:31:59,079 --> 00:32:04,000
do it on camera. Um,
it's getting really sophisticated. So I think

380
00:32:04,079 --> 00:32:06,960
we need let me, let me
put in a plug for media literacy,

381
00:32:07,039 --> 00:32:08,519
which I really believe in. I
think we're going to need that more than

382
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ever going forward. But it's it's
really it's really up to the ethics of

383
00:32:13,599 --> 00:32:16,839
the filmmaker, because you know,
all film is a manipulation, but the

384
00:32:17,319 --> 00:32:22,359
question is is it a manipulation in
service as a truth or is it a

385
00:32:22,799 --> 00:32:25,559
manipulation that undermines the truth? And
AI can be a tool that could be

386
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:31,039
used, you know, responsibly or
irresponsibly. Right, No, absolutely,

387
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,200
Um, Before I let you run, could you tell us us a little

388
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,400
bit about the reception that you've gotten
to Missing and Brooks County. It's it's

389
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,119
been out for a while. Um, Like we mentioned just one of Peabody,

390
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:45,319
so big congratulations on that. Um. We've been surprised by how people

391
00:32:45,359 --> 00:32:49,160
have received it. Um, you
know, how how it's made them think

392
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,200
differently. Um, what are you
hearing from people after they see it?

393
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:59,160
Any of that? Most people are
glad that they saw it. Uh,

394
00:32:59,319 --> 00:33:02,079
it is you know, it's it's
often maybe it's not everybody's idea of what

395
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:06,720
they want to watch on a Saturday
night, but we have had a great

396
00:33:06,759 --> 00:33:10,400
response to it. It played on
Independent Lens and it came back from Awards

397
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:16,440
window is still available everywhere. You
can watch it at you know, Amazon

398
00:33:16,599 --> 00:33:20,759
or Google Play or wherever you like, Apple, wherever you like to get

399
00:33:20,759 --> 00:33:24,680
your films. It won a Peabody, which we were just so thrilled about

400
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:30,640
because anything that puts this the subject
on people's radar. We think is a

401
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,799
win, and I think it was
very courageous for the Peabody jury to recognize

402
00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:37,799
this film. It's a it's a
story that is it's tough, and I

403
00:33:37,799 --> 00:33:44,400
think it's easy to look past,
but they didn't do that. So we

404
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,279
took the film. When I say
we, me and Lisa Malamut, my

405
00:33:47,319 --> 00:33:52,079
co director, and Jacob Brica,
i was one of our code producers and

406
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:57,359
the editor of the film, with
two of the film's participants, Eddie and

407
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:00,839
Kate, and we went to Washington, DC. We showed the film,

408
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:07,000
We had briefings with Democrats, with
Republicans, we had a screening there and

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00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:13,400
it was I mean, we'll see. You know, we're not activists working

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00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,920
on this topic. We know those
people, but this film is a tool

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00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:22,039
for them if they want to use
it to explain in an emotional way what's

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00:34:22,079 --> 00:34:25,920
happening and kind of take people there. Because of the verity filmmaking something you

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00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:31,039
can do that. Let's just say
that if a lawmaker goes home on a

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00:34:31,079 --> 00:34:37,639
weekend with a three thousand page policy
paper and an eighty one minute film or

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00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,119
DVD, they're probably gonna they're probably
going to pick up the film first.

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00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:49,599
They're staff too, staff for sure, the gen Z staffers on Capitol Hell.

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00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,280
Yes, well, Jeff b miss, thank you so much for coming

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00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:58,239
out and talk a little bit about
Missing in Brooks County. Where can people

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stream the film if they want to
watch it? It's on Apple, TV,

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00:35:02,159 --> 00:35:08,199
Amazon, It's on YouTube, I
don't know. It's all the Google

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00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:12,119
play all pretty much all of them. It's not on Netflix, but it's

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00:35:12,159 --> 00:35:15,360
everywhere else. Great and yeah,
I recommend people check it out. It's

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very, very compelling. So Jeff, thank you once again for your time.

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We really appreciate you coming on the
show. Thank you. Emily,

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00:35:22,519 --> 00:35:25,239
you've been listening to another edition of
The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jasinski,

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00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:29,000
culture editor here at The Federalist.
We'll be back soon with more.

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00:35:29,079 --> 00:35:36,519
Until then, the lovers of freedom
and anxious for the fras all right,