The last time we saw Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor, we were shaking our bones to Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers at the Jazzfest fairgrounds. Now arrives their documentary, directed by Logsdon and produced by Faulknor, telling about a storied New Orleans neighborhood that barely appears in the textbooks — even though in the Tremé , “the sit-ins began in the 1800s, the Harlem Renaissance started before the Civil War, and the roots of jazz music and Creole cuisine were being nurtured every Sunday in Congo Square.” Like everything else in New Orleans, the film was delayed and profoundly altered by Hurricane Katrina; the storm had changed the history of the Tremé and needed to become a part of the film.
It’s muckworld policy not to rate movies made by friends, but it’s worth noting that Logsdon, Faulknor, and writer/narrator Lolis Eric Elie take the exact opposite approach from Ed Pincus and Lucia Small, who headed south after the storm to make The Axe in the Attic without any apparent connection to the city. Faubourg Tremé illustrates all that was hopefully not lost when the levees broke — and the music is kick-ass. My own short movie from April 2006 is on YouTube.
Faubourg Tremé. Dawn Logsdon, 2007. N/R
