MLK/FBI
USA, 2020, 104 min
Director: Sam Pollard
Producer: Benjamin Hedin
Editor: Laura Tomaselli
Cinematographer: Robert Chappell
One of the darkest chapters in the history of the FBI is how Director J. Edgar Hoover used every dirty trick in his arsenal to discredit and disempower Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, MLK/FBI explores the government’s stained history of targeting MLK and other Black activists. This is the first film to uncover the extent of the FBI’s surveillance and harassment of Dr. King during the height of the Civil Rights movement. Among the voices heard in this powerful film are Andrew Young, James Comey and Clarence Jones. According to former FBI Director James Comey, a fabricated letter sent to Dr. King and his wife, written to sound like a disgruntled King supporter imploring King to kill himself, represents “the darkest part of the FBI’s history.” Director Sam Pollard contrasts Hoover and Dr. King, going back and forth exploring the actions and motivations of both in the process of telling this tragic story.
Pollard is an accomplished feature film and television video editor and documentary producer/director whose work spans almost 30 years. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton's Blackside production Eyes on The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads. He received an Emmy for one of his episodes in this series. Between 1990 and 2000, Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee's films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers and Bamboozled. Pollard and Lee also co-produced some documentary productions for the small and big screens: One, Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings, was nominated for an Academy Award. Pollard has been nominated for nine Emmys and won three, the most recent one in 2010 for Best Editing for Nonfiction Programming on the HBO documentary By the People: The Election of Barack Obama. He was the recipient of Hamptons Doc Fest Filmmakers’ Choice Award in 2018 for Sammy Davis Jr.: I Gotta Be Me.
Q/A moderated by Clayton Davis of Variety with Director Sam Pollard