Show The Civil War in Los Angeles started at Sundance Chris Lee Los Angeles Times Talk about unlikely film follow ollow The feature Documentary Made in which premiered at at the Sundance Film Festival this week is isI isI I probably the last thing you'd expect from director j I Stacy Peralta The former golden boy skateboard manufacturing mogul turned filmmaker doesn't seem like a n natural tural candidate to make an unflinching documentary about four decades of gang warfare between the Crips and In order to shoot it Peralta had to brave south Los Angeles' Angeles most dangerous neighborhoods interview people with pistols in their waistbands and cozy up to local shot callers in order to get his the hood version pass of a location permit But by turning his camera on Los Angeles' Angeles most lethal street gangs the west born director one of skateboarding's earliest professionals says he has completed his Angeleno documentary movie trilogy while also trying to expose a social malady with deep roots in inthe inthe inthe the City of Angels Im an LA boy All the stories weve we've told arc are centric said Peralta 51 whose Dogtown Z Boys chronicles a pioneering skateboard team from Santa Monica that basically invented extreme sports and whose second movie documentary Riding Giants provides an oral history of surfing Both films also premiered at Sundance And put it this way Peralta continued seated in a coffee shop if white American teenagers were forming gangs arming themselves with assault rifles and killing each other what do you suppose the response of the US U.S. government would be It would be over in a day This has been going on for WI u H J l T tr f Jt i 1 I II r t 4 S I I I I I i i fV j. j II 4 Los Angeles Times photo by Myung J. J Chun Made in America filmmaker Stacy Peralta center with gang ex-gang members Rodney Shaka Moralez left Kumasi writer co-writer Sam George and consultant Clifford Skipp Townsend 40 years So this film was an opportunity to explore this and find the human face behind it Some people in the audience of the films film's first public screening Sunday were moved to tears by Made in Americas hard hard- hitting message that gang warfare in Los Angeles is for all intents and purposes a civil war var To support this thesis the film traces the evolution of gangs from black all-black social clubs based in public parks in the through the empowering effect of the Watts riots in 1965 charting the rise of the civil rights movement through the death and imprisonment of its most able leaders Los Angeles' Angeles grid of freeways is also shown as promoting segregation and institutional racism by creating psychological barriers between blacks and whites with borders that were for many years physically enforced by police Add to that south Los Angeles' Angeles chronic joblessness hopelessness and crack epidemic and the film argues the stage is set for young blacks to turn rum against one another rather than rage together against the proverbial machine Even more poignantly Made in America posits that Los Angeles' Angeles gang strife has lasted longer and claimed more lives than the so-called so Troubles in Northern Ireland and resulted in a higher incidence of traumatic post-traumatic stress disorder among the children in south LA than among those in Baghdad Because they're poor black youth these kids dont don't rate high enough for forit forit forit it to be called a civil war Peralta said They dont don't have enough value placed on them The message is Youre not worth it Tough talk indeed worthy of Peraltas Peralta's stated ambition of changing public attitudes and challenging governmental policies concerning gangs in LA But many a has tread perilously close to sensationalizing his story subjects while trying to make a strong point And at times Made in Americas social agenda is more than a little conspicuous Asked if the filmmakers had overstated their case however community activist Kumasi a member of one of ofLAs LAs original street gangs who is interviewed in the film voiced support for Peraltas Peralta's editorial choice Every country has been torn tom to pieces by civil war and then reconstructed itself Kumasi said The people in this country realize how detrimental one can be So I like the language he used because it it itcan can make people have the same consideration when they're thinking about this neglected part of society inside this country They weren't sensationalizing this cult of death Paradoxically while trying to frame fiame the debate about about south LAs rnO n internecine warfare production on the film helped broker a fragile peace between gang factions Clifford Skipp Townsend an inactive member of the Rollin Bloods who is interviewed and served as asa asa asa a consultant on the movie recalled filming a segment surrounded by people with whom he ordinarily and liter literally wouldn't have been caught dead One time Stacy had guys who had shot at each other guys who had been enemies sitting on the same porch Townsend said It was powerful and uplifting to learn about these people I thought were totally different from me One of those guys was killed later Ultimately th the filmmakers granted their subjects an unusual amount of creative control Peralta and his producers Golden State Warriors point guard Baron Davis and Jesse Dylan son of Bob among them screened early cuts cut for gang members soliciting feedback and the ending to conclude on ona ona a more optimistic note b by showing reformed gangsters making a difference in n their pit It communities We weren't going to finish this thing guys blessed it Peralta said In the first screening there was no mention of the positive aspects of what's going on now Townsend said The first firstH cut of the film was more mor more H the gruesomeness th the animalistic behavior a S. S i |