How Many Lives? Documentary
Turns a 180-Foot Mural Into a Call for Reflection
How Many Lives? Documentary Film directed by Duda Penteado and produced by Unshakeable Productions explores the impact of local and national gun violence through the eyes of 25 Jersey City high-school and college students who created a 180-foot long mural titled “How Many Lives?” that spans across the back of a series of buildings on Kearney Avenue and is visible from the West Side Avenue light rail station.
In working with fine artists Duda Penteado and Catherine Hart the film, "How Many Lives?" follows student artists as they depict numerous well-publicized killings and mass murders, some that are local and deeply personal, others that have occurred across the country. Among the images painted by students on the mural are the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of one of the deadliest mass school shooting in American history, Philando Castile, who was shot and killed by police during a traffic stop, and a portrait of Jersey City Det. Melvin Vincent Santiago, who was fatally shot in the line of duty in 2014, which was painted by the late Detective's younger brother, Alex Bride.
The Documentary Film is a raw & transparent journey that simultaneously explores the American gun-control dilemma on a national and macro-level while venturing through the mirco-complexities that are experienced by a vulnerable group of teens in Jersey City who’ve been directly impacted by the unfortunate deadly reality of having lost loved ones to gun violence.
Duda Penteado, who directed the documentary and mentored the students as they painted the mural, takes the audience on an artistic journey beyond the barrel of a smoking gun throughout the film while exploring the tremendously weighty entanglements of the controversial issue of gun violence. Duda hopes America may be at a "turning point" in how gun violence is viewed.
"Art can facilitate a conversation," he said. "When you see an artwork, it takes you to a deeper level of thinking."
The Film also features the National March For Our Lives Rally in Washington D.C and the March For Our Lives Rally in Jersey City. The Film illuminates the voices of Gun Violence Survivors and the Youth as they explore Gun Violence as the Public Health Epidemic it is.
"My childhood friend, he was shot in broad daylight ... Nobody called the cops, nobody called the ambulance, people just pulled out their phones and recorded him, watching him struggle for his life," Student Artist Saidah Abdulkarim says in the film's trailer.
The social, political, and economic inquisitions that the film provokes is nothing short of brilliant because it aims to remain neutral and objective to its title. The Film is not only a call to action but a broader introspection about how the arts is a vehicle to steer the culture towards mutuality and collective understanding amidst tribalist extremes.
Instead of pushing the Jersey City teens to petition their legislators, which he is not adverse to, he challenges a discussion about the way people see & perceive the world around them through emotion, fear, and structures of government.
