JPG: As for as the Rainbow Gathering, before going to the one you filmed in 2008, did you attend a Gathering prior to that?
JK: I’ve been to one annual Gathering before that, the one in 1998. That year it was in Pennsylvania. It was pretty close to me, so I could go. I wanted to go more, but they’re always far away. It’s a big time commitment, so I wasn’t able to. I’ve been to a bunch of other local pot luck from local New York and Philadelphia, kind of like Rainbows in the area. Like once a month, we’ll have drum circle, local pot luck, stuff like that. So, I’ve been to a lot of that stuff, but they’re nothing like the annual Rainbow Gathering. That’s totally different! The one in Wyoming, where we shot, that was my second Gathering. I went back last year, in 2009. It was in New Mexico and got more footage.
JPG: Because of what transpired at the 2008 event, I wondered if you bothered to shoot more footage at another one. An interesting side note, I mentioned to a friend of mine who went to a Gathering. I think it was the same one you were attended. She said it was in Pennsylvania but sure of the exact location.
JK: Yea, probably. It was in western PA, 1998, I think, maybe 1999, actually.
JPG: Let me go through the list of each Gathering I found on Wikipedia. Now, if the info is correct…1999 Allegheny National Forest. She enjoyed certain aspects of it, but also recalled idiotic things such as someone who cut the line for the fresh water filtration system and some other incidents. Are those aspects of it that you choose to overlook, viewing the sum of the parts for what it equals at the very end?
JK: I’ve heard a lot of stories of the Gathering and people having bad experiences, and I could see how it happens. We didn’t have any bad experiences when we were in Wyoming like that, but the thing about the Rainbow Gathering is that everybody is welcome there. Not only is everybody welcome there, but it’s a place that people call home and the food is free and good and everybody’s telling you that they love you. So, it’s an incredibly appealing place to people like runaway kids and street people because it’s kind of like everything that, probably, they didn’t have which helped them get to the horrible place they’re in.
So, there are people there that are homeless, that are crazy, and that are not very nice. To me, they’re mostly centered in the parking lot area, which is why we didn’t run into too many of them. They have an area called A Camp, which tends to be that place. We didn’t spend any time in A Camp actually. We spent the time at the Gathering. We didn’t really see that. The Rainbows definitely have a bad reputation amongst a lot of people. I was surprised to find that, because, like I said, we didn’t have those experiences as a film crew. I was expecting them, based on all the stories. People are very nice. We had a couple that went a little crazy, but I didn’t feel threatened or anything.
JPG: As a documentarian, not showing that aspect of it or not interviewing government officials or law enforcement people — the other side of it – aren’t you showing too much of a utopian vision of Rainbow rather than the whole picture? Was your intent to just show the utopian side?
JK: Well, I do like to focus on things that are valuable, that people can be inspired by, and that people can take away from watching the film, and, hopefully, use to make the world a better place. Making the world a better place is why I love teaching. It’s definitely a part of my filmmaking now, and what I like to do.
When I went there I heard a lot of stories about people making fun of the Rainbows, but I definitely went there intending primarily to focus on the things that I thought were inspiring and noteworthy. Homeless people, I’ve had them every day on my way to work. They’re not so noteworthy to me. The really interesting part of the Rainbow is this stuff, like the fact that this happened through cooperative work and the fact that it’s non-commercial, the fact that people are generally kind to each other, creating this incredible infrastructure.
Also, with the law enforcement, we didn’t plan for that, but that’s the way the Rainbow Gathering that we were there to document happened. (Officials of the U.S. Forest Service’s National Incident Management Team (NIMT), claimed that they were threatened after making an arrest and shot tear gas at those at the Gathering.) First of all, I asked to speak to them and instead of speaking to me, and I’m a very respectful person, and I had press credentials, instead of even helping me find the right person to speak to, they searched through our stuff and intimidated us. Still, I wouldn’t necessarily want to vilify them but then what happened in Kid Village happened. They worked themselves into the role of the antagonist and the Rainbows worked themselves into the role of protagonist. It’s a short documentary, that’s the format we set out to do. I didn’t really have time to stray away from that narrative arc of the protagonist and the conflict and the antagonist. With a feature length that will probably happen.
JPG: It’s a 40-minute documentary right now. It’s being shown at festivals. You won the LA Shorts Fest, congratulations by the way, but is this one and you’re going to expand it?
JK: I’m not sure what’s going to happen right now. I’m going with what feels right. We intended to do a short film. Part of that, to be honest, is that I didn’t think I’d have access for a feature length, but that’s also what we’ve always done. But if you have a good short film, the obvious next step is turning it into a good feature length film. That’s regularly done. My intention is, I went back last year, shot a ton more footage. I plan on going back and cover the whole process this year. It’s going to be on the east coast, so it will be more practical and shoot the whole process from scouting to the Gathering itself all the way through clean up. We didn’t have the resources to do that last year. If we get a lot of good stuff, we’re going to try to put it together into a feature length. I don’t know if it will be entirely different, or we’ll use some of the footage from 2008. We’ll have to see what we get in the can.
JPG: That brings up this. In 2008 there was the conflict of what happened in Kid Village. You’ve been doing documentaries for a while now, when you look at the subject itself at the very beginning, what elements have to be there for you to go to all the trouble to get the cameras and the crew and what are looking for? You mentioned that you want inspiring stories, but what has to be there that you feel is worth putting the time, money and effort in it?
JK: Two things for me and if they’re both there, then I’m probably going to go for it. There either has to be a good story there or there has to be a potential for a good story and I want my work to contribute in some way towards transforming the world.
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