“Being an Outsider to Palm Springs Was an Asset”: Sara Newens, Mina T. Son and Courtney Parker on Racist Trees

Sara Newens and Mina T. Son’s provocatively titled Racist Trees begins as an innocent investigation into the root (no pun intended) of a half-century dispute over a line of 60-foot tamarisks separating a historically Black section of Palm Springs from its historically white (and now overwhelmingly gay cisgender male) neighbors on the other side of a city-owned golf course. The film morphs into something much more shocking than merely another example of systemic inequality and the longstanding “polite” racism of white liberals who prefer gaslighting to admissions of culpability. Indeed, in the slyest and boldest of moves, the white and Korean American filmmaking duo (along with their Black co-EP and DP) have taken what appears to be an average tale of two cities and transformed it into a laugh-and-cringe, Jordan Peele-style, comedy-horror doc. Soon after catching the film during its world-premiering IDFA run back in November, Filmmaker decided to reach out to the team — director-producer-editor Newens, director-producer Son and co-executive producer Courtney Parker — as they prepared for their doc’s North American debut January 7th, appropriately during the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.