DOCUMENTARY FILM & TV
Sickness in the System
PREMIERED ON FIELD OF VISION NOVEMBER 2022
Director/Cinematographer/Co-Editor: Bryan Gibel
Through May 2020, none of the 3,500 people incarcerated in San Quentin State Prison had tested positive for COVID-19. Two months later, 70 percent of the population was infected, making it the worst COVID hotspot in the country. Sickness in the System shows the San Quentin outbreak from the inside by combining phone interviews with incarcerated people with performances by actors, hand-drawn illustrations and archival images from before the pandemic. Through two men's stories, we see how the virus came to San Quentin when incarcerated people were transferred into San Quentin from another prison, and the infection quickly spread through open-air cells, packed showers and poor management. As the pandemic rages, both men fear for their lives, but they meet very different fates when the California Department of Corrections releases people from the prison to combat the crisis.
Sign My Name To Freedom
CURRENTLY IN POST-PRODUCTION | COMING IN 2023
Director/Producer/Cinematographer: Bryan Gibel
Co-Director/Producer/Cinematographer: A.K. Sandhu
Betty Reid Soskin is America's oldest park ranger, famous for tirelessly shedding light on the forgotten history of racial segregation in California. But there's a hidden side to Betty she rarely talks about. Back in the 1950s, Betty and her family were the first African-Americans to integrate an all-white town in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she chronicled her experiences as a singer/songwriter, with a voice like Billie Holiday and the relevance of Nina Simone. But she turned her back on a potential career in music, and her songs haven't been heard for half a century. Now she teams up with younger musicians, singers and dancers to explore her songs, sparking a journey through the black experience in California by three generations.
Sign My Name to Freedom is a feature documentary about Betty, her lost music and her family's experiences confronting racial segregation in California's Bay Area. The majority of the film was shot over four years from 2016 through 2019, and the project is currently fundraising to edit the movie.
Chicago Confessional
COMPLETED IN 2012
Director/Cinematographer/Editor: Bryan Gibel
Chicago Confessional is a half-hour documentary film about a police torture squad that operated in Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s. It follows Stanley Wrice's fight after 30 years in prison to overturn his conviction for a horrible crime he insists he didn't commit. It is an examination of race, violence and the criminal justice system in the country's third-largest city.
“Saving The City” Episode: San Francisco - The Future Workplace
COMPLETED IN 2021
Director/Editor: James Kennard
Director of Photography: Bryan Gibel
Saving the City is a multi-part documentary series with related educational material asking and answering how can we make our cities better places for all? In this episode, the show looks at San Francisco during the pandemic, replete with empty downtowns and unoccupied commercial buildings. But is this a permanent situation? As work from home extends its stay, how many of these offices, hotels, stores, restaurants and entertainment venues will be re-occupied and when?
Intersections
COMPLETED IN 2021 FOR WATERBEAR NETWORK
Director: Ali Alvarez
Director of Photography: Bryan Gibel
Intersections is a film that digs into the term ‘Intersectional Environmentalism’ - an inclusive version of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people and the planet. Through a discussion between Leah Thomas - a young activist, and Betty Reid Soskin - the US’s oldest Park Ranger, the two women discuss topics that range from race, gender, history, and nature.