Filmmaker Chico Colvard, courtesy C-Line Films
Filmmaker Chico Colvard accidentally shot his sister in the leg when he was a 10 year old boy. His sister, fearing she was going to die, blurted out that she and their other two sisters were being molested by their father. This set in motion a chain of events that Colvard’s first major film, “Family Affair,” documents over a multi-year period.
Chico Colvard and co-producer Madison O’Leary are currently working on a new documentary with the working title “The Call: America’s Gilded Age of Grievance.” The film will explore the topic of phone calls to police and their different, and sometimes very tragic, outcomes.
One of the subjects of the film will be Yale University Ph.D. candidate Sarah Braasch, who was depicted in the international media as a racist cop caller in what is now known as the “Napping While Black” incident. (If you are unfamiliar with Braasch’s story, a background link is below.)
Sarah Braasch, Portrayed as Racist Cop Caller at Yale, Debuts YouTube Channel
In an interview with Craig Phillips for PBS’s Independent Lens collection, Colvard says:
“THE CALL: America’s Gilded Age of Grievance examines 911 calls that range from acts of white supremacy to displays of implicit bias and genuine concerns about suspicious behavior framed by roiling racial divides. By inviting to the conversation racial justice experts, dispatchers, law enforcement, victim/survivors and the ever-elusive callers cloaked in veils of anonymity, this project synthesizes the 911 epidemic in America’s ‘New Jim Crow.’ As with any story, the ‘truth’ is elusive. Shifting memories are compromised by implicit bias, fear and trauma. The goal is not to endorse or refute the participants’ agendas, but to expose epistemic habits and emotional dispositions that shape how we understand ‘us,’ ‘them,’ and the world around us.”
Subjects of “The Call” will include:
Corey Lewis, made famous for “Babysitting While Black,” when a woman called the police while two children were in his care. Lewis runs an after-school program and camp for children in Marietta, Georgia.
Marc Peeples, a Detroit, Michigan native who established a community garden on an abandoned lot. In a rather complicated case, three neighborhood women repeatedly called the police accusing Peeples of a variety of misdeeds which eventually resulted in his arrest on allegations of stalking. All charges were ultimately dismissed. The incident became known as “Gardening While Black.”
Blake Murphy, a medical student, who called police when she thought she saw a man breaking into a car in Evanston, Illinois. The man turned out to be a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University getting into his own car. However, local police pursued him as he drove away and Murphy’s own dash camera caught officers violently taking him to the ground.
Stephon Clark, who was shot and killed in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento, California, when police responded to a report of someone smashing car windows and stealing loose items. Clark was shot dead when police mistook his cell phone for a gun. His family continues to pursue justice against Sacramento Police Department.
Sarah Braasch, known internationally in the “Napping While Black” incident, who is currently working on her dissertation from Yale University. Braasch has two engineering degrees from the University of Minnesota, a JD from Fordham University and is a member of the New York State Bar. Braasch has petitioned the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission to release the Yale Police Department bodycam footage from the incident. To date, the YPD refuses to release the video to the public.
Colvard’s films have a unique quality as he is able to view situations as more complex than they may appear on the surface. “Family Affair” and his second film “Black Memorabilia,” surprise the viewer by approaching taboo topics with a subtle sense of duality.
After Colvard shot his sister and she disclosed the molestation by their father, his father was arrested and sent to prison, the parents divorced, and the children were torn apart and farmed out to relatives. Colvard cut off any relationship with his father for years, but his sisters ultimately formed a new and different relationship with their father.
“Family Affair” thus documents the aftermath of this tragedy and Colvard’s deeper understanding of how this family attempted to put itself back together. Colvard writes, “Family Affair does not attempt to mitigate the long-term dysfunctional impact of incest. Instead, this documentary reshapes the commonly held view that molesters are pushed to the margins of society, never to reconnect with their victim/survivors. In the end, the film focuses on the motives, accommodations and levels of forgiveness survivors make in order to maintain some semblance of family.”
Colvard’s goal is to move beyond the obvious, taking the viewer along on a ride that is complex and emotional. He writes, “At first, this documentary ran the risk of turning into a crude indictment of my father, a figure the audience is sure to view as a ‘monster’. While that assessment might be unavoidable, I do not want the audience to only view him or other pedophiles as a one-dimensional ‘monster-like’ figure.”
More recently, Colvard made the film “Black Memorabilia,” featured as part of PBS’s Independent Films collection. Again, the film is more than a simple indictment. In his director’s statement, Colvard writes, “The goal of the film is not to demonize or blame the people that hold these objects dear, but to understand the context and background in which they came to know them. Often times black memorabilia is seen as a connection to family, heritage and ‘the good old days’ of one’s childhood. In many cases these objects aren’t even considered hateful, but rather historical or even cute.”
Again, confronting a taboo topic, the film’s goal is to educate and open a difficult discussion. In a synopsis of “Black Memorabilia,” the producers explain: “In the midst of the roiling ethnic unrest in the US today, the film’s confrontation of our feelings about these objects strikes at the heart of a pressing contemporary issue and opens a unique dialogue about the continuing legacy of racism in America.”
Chico Colvard teaches Race, Law and Media related courses in the Boston area. He was the Founding Curator of the UMB Film Series. Chico is the founding member of C-LineFilms.
Madison O’Leary is a Boston-based producer. She received her BA in Communications from UMass Amherst. After working around the country as a Trauma and Abuse Counselor in federal prisons, she came on to work as an Assistant Producer and Researcher on FAMILY AFFAIR (Sundance, 2010). She worked as a Producer on BLACK MEMORABILIA (MoMA 2018) and currently heads-up operations at C-LineFilms, LLC.
C-LineFilms is an independent storytelling group committed to social justice documentaries. Their work screens globally at festivals, museums, broadcasts and online platforms. C-Line aims to partner with college/universities, libraries, grassroots organizations and community allies to raise awareness, provoke meaningful conversations, stimulate syllabi and enhance professional development.
For more about C-Line Films, visit https://www.c-linefilms.org/
For more about Sarah Braasch’s FOIA request to the Yale Police Department and the Yale investigation, visit
Has Sarah thought about this: A real activist would know how dangerous police are to Black lives and if she’s as aware as she claims then she wouldnt have endangered her. Also sleeping in common area, or anywhere on campus, is normal. No one cares. Everyone does it. And it’s not harmful. She wanted to flex power because a peaceful person would have just let her sleep. And even if she thought she was a harasser she was still sleeping, as in passive and was still no harm to her. Has she self reflected? Did she recognize the potential danger she could’ve cause? Is she sorry? Or just she just doesn’t want to look racist anymore?