RUSSELL BANKS: I WRITE IN ORDER TO BE A BETTER PERSON is an emotionally compelling documentary that explores the life and work of the renowned author of many books, including Affliction, Continental Drift, Book of Jamaica, The Sweet Hereafter, and Rule of the Bone. The film directly addresses how art can enable one to find common ground with “others” amid today's social and political polarization. It includes interviews with filmmakers Raoul Peck, Paul Schrader, Atom Egoyan, and writers Nell Painter, William Kennedy, Jay Parini, and the Banks family. It becomes a unique film journal about this acclaimed writer.
Banks’ work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards including the John Dos Passos Prize for fiction. Both Continental Drift in 1986 and Cloudsplitter in 1999 were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
His novels, Affliction, and The Sweet Hereafter were adapted into feature films which received widespread critical acclaim: James Coburn won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Nick Nolte was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for their roles in Affliction; The Sweet Hereafter won three awards, including the Grand Prix and the International Critics Award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
The film is driven by archival material, narrated excerpts and interviews with those who knew him, this documentary brings audiences face to face with the celebrated author, Russell Banks. It presents a fascinating study of how Banks’ creative process led him to question his own biases and cultural assumptions and serves as an example of how one can generate the empathy and compassion required to recognize the full, shared humanity of those with backgrounds and outlooks different from our own.
