New HBO documentary ‘The Sentence’ screened this week at The New York Latino Film Festival.
Rudy Valdez didn’t plan to become a documentary filmmaker. Over a decade ago, he was just Uncle Rudy to three bright girls – Autumn, Ava and Annalis – and little brother to their mother, Cynthia “Cindy” Shank. But life soon forced the Michigan-raised, Mexican-American production assistant to pick up a camera himself when Cindy was delivered a fifteen-year federal prison sentence. Her crime? She was once the girlfriend of a drug dealer, who had died years earlier.
It’s a phenomenon known as the “girlfriend problem,” in which women are forced to serve the minimum sentence on their partner’s crimes due to their own “conspiracy” or involvement. In Cindy’s case, her sole conspiracy was having once lived with the drug dealer. Her crime would come back to haunt her years later, when she was pulled from her sleep by federal agents with a warrant for her arrest. A wife and doting mother, she would be forced to leave behind the beautiful life she’d built— all to pay for the crimes of a dead man.
In his shock and pain, Rudy Valdez sought the only comfort he could provide for Cindy and himself. He would spend the next ten years filming his nieces: their dance recitals, their daily routines, their joy, their fights, their laughter, their sadness. The Sentence is the sum of these moments, pieced together for Cindy to watch her girls grow up. In watching these girls grow up without a mother, we reach a heart wrenching, intimate understanding of the injustices of federal minimum sentencing in America.
The film, which first premiered at Sundance in January 2018, held its HBO premiere this Thursday in Times Square, New York City at the New York Latino Film Festival. Director and filmmaker Rudy Valdez held a Q&A panel directly after the screening, where interviewers had a chance to learn more about the process behind this important documentary. Read below for his insights, and be sure to catch The Sentence when it airs on HBO this fall.
It must be hard putting the camera on your family. Was there ever a point where you just wanted to put it down? Where did you find the strength to keep going?
Rudy Valdez: The very first scene in this film literally captures the moment when I became a filmmaker and when this became a film. I started this film not as a documentary, but just as a way to capture moments for my sister who was going to be away— we were looking at fifteen years at the time. Pictures are amazing, and phone calls are wonderful, but I needed her to see them [her children] live. I wanted her to see them cry, I wanted her to see them run and grow and play and dance and fight. I needed her to be able to watch them grow up one day. That’s how this started.
I flew back [to Michigan] because Autumn [Cindy’s daughter] was having her first dance recital. And completely organically, completely unexpected, Cindy calls—and you see it in the film, she says that line: “You know what Mommy’s going to do when you go to dance? I’m going to lay down in my bed, I’m going to close my eyes, and I’m going to think about you.” And it was in that moment that I realized that I had an opportunity to tell a story that you don’t get to see: the people left behind— the family and children who are also doing these sentences. I knew that I needed to figure out how to tell that story. And it was difficult—I didn’t know what I was doing, clearly, if you look at the footage in the beginning.
But the next moment where I felt like I truly owned it, was the first time I was filming my father when he was crying. He breaks down in front of me and everything in my heart, everything in my soul, was saying “Rudy, don’t be an asshole. Put down the camera. Hug your father. Tell him it’s going to be okay, tell him you’re going to make it through this.” And then something else came over me—it was literally like this two-shoulder thing—and it said, “Rudy, hold your shot. This is for the greater good. When you told your family you were going to make a documentary about this, you promised them that one day, you were going to make something good of it, you were not going to let this be in vain.”
It took over and, I talk a little bit about this in the film, but it became this defense mechanism for me. When things were getting emotional, I would start saying in my head “Do I have enough battery for this film? Am I in focus? Hold your shot, hold your shot, hold your shot. How much time do I have on the cards?” I started going into the technical aspects in order to disassociate myself from what was happening emotionally.
This was your first work as a documentary filmmaker; what was that process for you like as someone who was learning the ropes as you went along?
Rudy Valdez: I will say, making this film while being introduced to documentary filmmaking, they were both sort of my film schools. I was working on other people’s films before I started this and I remember being with people on their worst days. I started to realize the weight that we carry as documentary filmmakers. These people are trusting you with their story—they’re being open and honest and vulnerable, and I had this comparison with my own family that, with my film, I don’t get to shut off and go to my apartment at the end of the day and reset. This [film] was something I’ve lived with since it started, I live with it today still—I can’t turn it off. This is something that is going to represent my family for the rest of their lives and my life. And I started to take that responsibility and that weight into all of my other projects. And being in a room with somebody and asking them to do these things, there’s a connection that you have to make with them. I learned just as much from the other films as I did on my film, they tag teamed and taught me this way of approaching film with honesty and integrity and responsibility.
Were you shocked to learn that the “girlfriend problem” was far more common than you may have thought?
Rudy Valdez: Yeah, definitely. When Cindy first went away, I went home and I thought that it was a clerical error. I thought somebody forgot to carry the one, or something, and she wasn’t supposed to be there. Then I started doing research—I started calling people and calling organizations, and I quickly realized that not only was she supposed to be in there, but that this happening throughout the country. Cindy’s story is not unique— that’s the crazy thing. This is a problem that is happening in our country to thousands and thousands of people: men, women, the families, and the children left behind. It’s a huge problem.
Have there been any talks of reform? Whether in the Obama administration, or now?
Rudy Valdez: There was certainly a lot of movement surrounding this issue during the Obama administration— there were a lot of laws put in place and executive orders put forward, that with the current administration, have been stripped away. But, I don’t know if people noticed this with the film or not, but I tried to make it as apolitical as possible. There’s no going into the history of how this started, who’s perpetuating it— that’s on purpose. It’s because I honestly don’t care who fixes this problem. Anybody who wants to fix it, can fix it. There are other films that go into depth onto how these laws are put into place and that entire process, but I felt like that wasn’t going to be my strongest film. My strongest film was going to be one that put a face on this problem.
When we started this film, the first thing I said to my editor and my producers was that we were not going to have a single stat card in this film. And when they asked why, I said: When Autumn looks up at the camera and she’s thirteen years old and you see the wear on her, you see what life has done to her with nine and a half years without a mother, that’s what you’re going to remember. You’re not going to remember a stat card that pops up—I wanted to people to feel this loss, and I wanted them to feel like they were a part of the family.
Everything in this film is on purpose. From the lens choice— I shot most of it with a wide-open lens, which means that if I’m shooting you, the focus is on you and everything else falls away. I wanted you to be a part of my family, I didn’t want you to watch my family, I didn’t want you to get a sneak peek into what was happening. I wanted you to be in that. I need you to be there with me, because that is the only way we are going to change this. Voting is going to help, but I think we need a cultural shift in our country—we need to be able to put ourselves into other people’s shoes and understand what is going on and the true loss that’s happening here.
So would you say that most of your research took place throughout the filming process? And do you continue your research and advocacy today?
Rudy Valdez: Yeah, I did all my research during filming— there was a whole layer of this film that was stripped it away, and it was my fight; my fight for Cindy. I completely took it out. It was the only time, aesthetically, that I wasn’t holding the camera and it felt very disjointed from the personal story that I was trying to tell, and I certainly didn’t want to make a “Rudy is such a cool hero and brother,” film.
But, over the course of that decade, I became an advocate. I became somebody who anytime there was a hearing going on in D.C., anytime there was an opportunity to speak, somebody would call me and I would jump in my car and I would drive there and speak to every single person there. I would speak anytime they would let me speak, I would speak anytime they wouldn’t let me speak, I would talk to anybody that would open the door, I would open the window if they wouldn’t open the door—and I spoke and I said Cindy’s name—Cynthia Shank, Cynthia Shank, Cynthia Shank. And I became a fighter not only for Cindy, but for other people too.
And what was that feedback like?
Rudy Valdez: Well it’s tough because Cindy’s story is not unique. It’s like a needle in a haystack. Every time you go to one of these events, there are so many people fighting for their loved ones. We were fortunate enough to have it captured on film, but there are so many people who are going through this and don’t have that same exposure.
Take us to that moment where you’re done and you showed this film to your family for the first time— what was that moment like?
Rudy Valdez: We premiered at Sundance in January—I kept this from everyone until December. Right before Christmas, I gathered my family in a theater back in Michigan and I said, “Look, I just filmed the worst decade of our life. I cut it down to a manageable 85 minutes. I color-corrected it, I put a beautiful score under it. Here you go!” I just walked out of the room—I didn’t know what they were going to do or say, but I will tell you this. When we found out that we got into Sundance, I called my dad and I told him, and he said “Oh, that’s so nice,”—he doesn’t really know what I do for a living, I called my mom and she was like, “Oh, mijo, that’s so great, can we do it in New York?” and I was like, “It’s kind of set in Park City, that’s where they always do it..” (laughs).
Then, my sister called my dad and explained to him what it meant for a guy and a camera for nine and a half years to tell a story that’s a one in a million story, take it to Sundance, to be in competition. My dad called me and he was crying. All he kept saying was “How did you know? How did you know this was going to happen?” I didn’t know. I didn’t know this film was ever going to get finished, I didn’t know that we were going to get into Sundance, I didn’t know we were going to get picked up by HBO. But what I did know was that we were about to go through something that was going to test us to our limits and that we as a family were going to handle it with poise and grace, and that we were going to make it through, and we were going to be very proud of that.
The Sentence will air on HBO this fall.
