By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
The documentary title – “Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit” – is indicative of not only the timeline of the city’s march to near financial ruin in 2013, but also reflects the pace of producing the film that will be featured on opening night of the Freep Film Festival later this month.
The first public screening of the documentary will take place at 7 p.m. on April 27 in the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The showing, which already is sold out, also will serve as a homecoming of sorts for former Detroit Free Press reporter Nathan Bomey, the film’s principal screenwriter.
Bomey, who recently left USA Today to join Axios as a business reporter, is the author of the highly-acclaimed book “Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back.” The book was released in 2016 and chronicled the story behind the largest municipal bankruptcy case in the nation’s history. Bomey had the proverbial front row seat for the bankruptcy proceedings, covering the case for The Free Press during his stay with the Detroit daily. An Eastern Michigan University alum, Bomey originally was assigned the General Motors beat for The Free Press, but expressed interest in helping the paper cover the impending bankruptcy when the city’s financial situation deteriorated in early 2013.
Bomey’s involvement in the documentary project “began when co-director and executive producer Sam Katz pitched the idea to me at a meeting in Washington, D.C., in January 2016.”
Said Bomey: “At the time, he was considering pursuing the project and rounding up funding. Once he had funding lined up, it was full speed ahead. I started actively engaging in the scriptwriting process in 2017. This involved combing through thousands of pages of transcripts from about 140 interviews conducted by the film team over the course of about two years. It was an incredible privilege to be able to dive even deeper into this story.”
The complexities of the case and the key players involved in the real-life drama made for a compelling storytelling project, according to Bomey.
“The biggest challenge was figuring out what made the cut and what didn't,” Bomey admitted. “The team's research was so prodigious that we had more than we could ever ask for. Since finishing the core script about two years ago, I've been collaborating closely with co-directors Sam Katz and James McGovern on edits and tweaks. I'm thrilled that Detroiters will be the first to see the film after about half a decade of work.”
The film project received a major boost last fall when the Better Angels Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the “exploration of American history through documentary film,” selected it as the winner of the 2021 Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. The honor also included $200,000 to provide finishing funding for the project.
The runner-up in the film competition, “Free Chol Soo Lee,” which tells the story of a Korean immigrant wrongly convicted of murder in 1973, received $50,000 in finishing funding. The four other finalists for the top prize each received $25,000.
Burns, the legendary American filmmaker, said each of the finalists was an “extraordinary work of art” deserving of funding provided by the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation.
“We’re so honored to provide the filmmakers with funding to help finish the films and share them with the public,” Burns said in a prepared statement last fall. “I have long believed that our ability to engage around historical topics will help us tackle some of the challenges we are dealing with today.”
Sam Katz is the executive producer at History Making Productions, a Philadelphia-based company that he co-founded with his son Philip in 2008. The studio has produced more than 200 films and videos since its founding, and has earned two-dozen Emmy Awards.
“I spent 27 years in public finance and was chairing the fiscal oversight agency established to monitor Philadelphia's finances, when in 2012 I started to follow the Detroit story,” Katz said in tracing his involvement in the film project. “I decided it might make a great story for a documentary in 2014 but my plate was full. I met Nathan on January 31, 2016 in Washington to recruit him to the project.”
Among those appearing in the documentary are Gerald Rosen, then chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Detroit who was instrumental in devising the “Grand Bargain” that helped save the Detroit Institute of Arts; Judge Steven Rhodes, who presided over the bankruptcy case; Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr; Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan; and assorted other key players in the case.
Katz said Bomey was “a pleasure to work with” on the documentary, which also received funding support from the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan, and Paul Schaap, founder of Lumigen Inc.
“His understanding and perspectives on the bankruptcy evolved as we prosecuted the story, as did mine,” Katz said. “We incorporated many other points of view than the prevailing narrative of the Grand Bargain and I think present a very balanced picture. Nathan had never worked on film script writing, but his insight, knowledge, and journalistic excellence helped us achieve our mission.”
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