Film & Video: "Desert Bayou" Puts New Orleans Story on Big Screen

Two years after Hurricane Katrina, as the struggle to collect promised aid, return home, rebuild and recover looms perilously close to failure, a story being told by some 600 New Orleans evacuees may not have had a voice without Taproot Productions' documentary "Desert Bayou."

On the second anniversary of the hurricane that resulted in the worst U.S. natural disaster ever ..."slow, insufficient and misguided federal policy is keeping tens of thousands of displaced American families from realizing their human right to return and rebuild their lives and communities." (Jeffrey Buchanan, Blueprint for Gulf Renewal, August/September 2007). Two years later, as the struggle to collect promised aid, return home, rebuild and recover looms perilously close to failure, a story being told by some 600 New Orleans evacuees may not have had a voice without Taproot Productions' documentary Desert Bayou.

Featuring Master P, whose parents were among the displaced and Utah-transferred evacuees, Desert Bayou centers on the experiences of two families in this group who found themselves not only forced from the only homes they knew, but literally sequestered on planes, plopped into a desert on an available military base 45 minutes outside of Salt Lake City, and forced to maneuver in a chess game ruled by members of a predominantly white, racially ignorant and nearly exclusively Mormon enclave.

Faced with a continued bureaucratic indifference that began following the disaster, the personal stories that emerge from the evacuees add a very human element to a story that was unfathomable by most of the nation and now nearly incomprehensible by those who hear their stories, review news clips of both the Utah Governor, Mayor of Salt Lake City and, comically, a few of the less enlightened citizens of Salt Lake City. The victims' conflicts and personal growth is portrayed from fear and isolation to discovery and solution.

Desert Bayou gives voice to those victims who suffered the aftermath of a tragedy that evolved on a daily basis," says director Alex LeMay (The Bulls of Suburbia). "In the midst of this process, there are chronicles of plenty of good deeds, good people and community; religious and social figures whose good will eventually prevails

LeMay's recently completed documentary, Desert Bayou, will open October 5, 2007 in both New York and New Orleans, followed by a platformed release in several U.S. cities, and is distributed by Cinema Libre Studio.

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