Movie documents 82-year-old's Katrina rebuild

Almost a year after Hurricane Katrina, 82-year old Herbert Gettridge is still rebuilding his home in the lower 9th Ward, one of the poorest and most deserted areas in New Orleans.\nMore than 85 percent of the residents, mostly poor, mostly black, were homeowners before the storm dispersed them around the nation. More than likely, former residents are renting apartments or homes elsewhere, according to Maria Lovett's video narrative "Perseverance."\nLovett, a doctoral candidate in educational policy studies at the University of Illinois and a film instructor, showed raw video footage to a group of 30 students and staff Thursday night about one man's plight to rebuild his home.\nShe said she decided to create the documentary to explore "issues of representation" in the media.\n"When I say 'the representation,'" Lovett said, "I am referring to how people are represented in the media -- how they are positioned by the camera and how American citizens are termed 'refugees.'"\nLovett said creating the documentary reinforced her own ideas about race and class in the U.S. She said race continues to be major factor in the lack of governmental response and aid after the hurricane.\n"The storm washed away America's ability to deny that racism and economic instability do not exist," she said. "Just last week, there were 300 kids -- American citizens -- who could not get into the public school systems in New Orleans. That says a lot."\nRasul Mowatt, an IU assistant professor in the Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies Department who helped organize the event, expressed what he hoped participants learned from the documentary.\n"I hope students get a more personalized sense of what happened during the actual disaster, but more so afterwards," Mowatt said.\nMowatt said he hopes students understand there are displaced residents who want to return home but the government has not reached out to them to allow them to do so.\n"A lot of the areas are also gone and barren even if people want to go home," he said.\nMowatt said he wants participants to challenge media coverage -- to think about New Orleans residents not only as victims but as human beings who are returning to the city and rebuilding homes and property they once owned.\n"This area had the highest home ownership," Mowatt said. "They were poor, but at least they owned their home -- that's important to remember."\nHeather Meece, a senior in tourism management who volunteered in New Orleans in December 2005 and December 2006, reflected on what she learned from the documentary.\n"The most interesting thing was to see his (Gettridge's) individual experience and what he had to go through," she said. "It wasn't just a generalized view of the people in New Orleans."\nMeece said her own ideas about racism in the country were only reinforced by the documentary.\n"Racism still exists, and whenever you see the media footage, it still shows the residents in a negative light," she said. "It still exists, whether or not people acknowledge it"