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Driven by a powerful sense of purpose, documentary filmmakers dedicate their craft to illuminating stories of reconciliation surrounded by conflict and trauma.

Tonight, our guest is shedding light on a pressing societal issue with her in production documentary dying for Relief America's Opioid Nightmare.

I'm so happy you're joining us.

And then you from Los Angeles.

This is KLCS PBS.

Welcome to everybody with Angela Williamson and Innovation, Arts, education and public affairs program.

Everybody, with Angela Williamson is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

We got the call out in the morning of August 6th.

2023 telling us that they found our son in downtown Colorado near the baseball stadium.

And it was a combination of fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.

And he died alone.

MLB.

Who is 18 years old.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat the United States has ever faced.

They hear me and is a nearly invisible poison.

So, sir, wake up.

Carol Wilson is our guest.

Carol, thank you so much for being here.

It's my pleasure.

We want to talk about your documentary that's in production.

However, before we get to that, I would love for our audience to get to know you because you have a huge artist background.

So let's talk a little bit about yourself.

Well, Me.

Who is who am I?

I mean, technically, I have a name.

Carol.

I grew up in New York.

My parents, actually, their best friend was Martin Luther King's lawyer, and his daughter was my best friend.

So I grew up very conscious of the civil rights movement.

That was in the 60s, and I was even at the I Have a Dream speech in Washington when I was 14.

So very early in life.

I was taught the goals of peacemaking and reconciliation, inclusion, we're very important values.

And so, I decided, though, that I didn't want to go into politics around the age of 20 because I felt like there was so much, there were a lot of pitfalls in politics, you might say things like greed, power can come into play.

So I chose a spiritual path instead, and I ended up, having a guru and went to India for six months and lived in an ashram.

And then I came back to the United States and actually lived in an ashram for five years.

But ironically, I became the guru's press secretary.

So while a lot of other people were meditating quietly on weekends, I was out making calls to press people, arranging press conferences.

So, instead of being a reclusive kind of spiritual person, I became much more aware of media.

And one of the things I realized I would talk about the benefits of meditation and then what was reported would be, while the guru likes ice cream or, you know, things like that.

So I got very disillusioned also.

In the sense it was a good lesson.

Do you think that that lesson helped you as you moved forward?

Because everything you do has a touch of this is the societal issue, and this is how we reconcile it.

Do you think that that experience impacted what you do now?

Absolutely.

Because I realized that, in order for oneself to express their truth, sometimes you have to do it yourself.

You can't rely on other people to necessarily report what you want to do.

So, I started thinking about filmmaking at the time, but I was also an artist.

And so it's much easier to buy a canvas and some paints than it is to get funding for a documentary, for example.

So, for many years I was a painter.

I still am a painter, and the goal of my work was to create beautiful visions, not corny things like just an angel with a halo and wings.

You know, you can make a beautiful painting like that.

But to provide paintings that had a certain energy that when people looked at them, they felt inspired, happier.

And so, you know, I had a career with that.

And then in 2009, my late husband, who was a filmmaker, was asked to do a film about Clint Eastwood for art, which is like the PBS of France.

Yes.

And we're kind of a little low on money, you know, the life of an artist, painter and a writer is not necessarily lucrative, but the happy few make a good living out of it.

Yes, but, we got the money for the show, and he started listing all the jobs that were needed.

And I tell me, well, I can do that, and I can do that.

I can do that.

So I ended up being a producer.

So that was my first realm into the art of producing.

And because I'd done PR for my guru, so to speak, it's kind of like man management.

Position management applies to anything.

So, got to know Clint.

You know, the image people have with him is different than who he really is.

He won't came to Hollywood in the 1950s, and one of his goals was to bring meditation to Hollywood.

And, he did TM, I believe, and he would meditate before every shoot he did.

And we would be invited, to all of his sets if we were in the area because, my late husband was also a writer.

He was an expert on, American cinema.

He was French, but his expertise was American cinema.

And he in particular, he was a scholar of Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese.

So Clint, for example, would meditate for 20 minutes after lunch before we would go on the set.

So he had an aside to him, an intuitive, peaceful side that wasn't necessarily reflected.

He said, I don't want to do dirty Harry movies.

I'd like to do something else like, play Misty for me or later.

Some of the other ones like Million Dollar Baby, for example.

That was a phenomenal movie.

Yes.

So I learned that what a person's public image is, is not necessarily who they are.

Another interesting example.

I used to watch Larry King when Larry King was still around.

Yes.

Back in the old days.

And he was interviewing Paul McCartney and Paul McCartney, said Paul McCartney.

Who's the guy you see on stage?

I'm not Paul McCartney.

I mean, I think his name is Paul McCartney, but he said, I'm a different person than that persona.

And it was interesting to me because the idea of a public image and who you really are are two very different things.

And so, I began practicing Buddhism 53 years ago.

And one of the, the tenets of Buddhism is that you're, your innermost self is innately good, and it's because of false beliefs, ignorance of that.

You know, ego can get in the way.

You can.

You can get very grasp or attached.

Could be money, power, hungry for love in a very codependent way.

You get very attached or aversion where you have like hatred for things or critical judgments.

So, the idea is that everyone is innately good, but you need to strip away that sort of ugly talent of ego to find that place of love and goodness in your heart.

And so that's why.

Because that was what I practiced.

I was, by the way, brought up with no religion at all.

So it was easy to adapt.

Yes.

And, that was the underpinnings of my filmmaking, too, is to talk about reconciliation, peacemaking, and, after the Clint Eastwood one, which is just about him as a filmmaker, with my husband and I did a film called Reconciliation Mandela's Miracle, and it was about how Nelson Mandela ended apartheid in South Africa.

And we and we couldn't interview him.

It was in 2009 because he had Alzheimer's, which was kept kind of secret.

Yes.

So, we interviewed his daughter.

We, the Mandela Foundation, opened the doors to us, and we we also interviewed de Klerk.

And it was very interesting to listen to de Klerk's side of the story of how, when.

Conversing with someone who used to be your enemy, and come to an agreement.

And it was quite extraordinary how they talked about they care how they came to trust each other and realize they were both on the same page.

They both wanted to end this terrible system.

Of course, I'd.

And it was a very, powerful experience for me.

And, the film actually, that's still in distribution and it came out in 2009, is still airing around the world or because the message is true today.

And when you were talking about you talked about Clint Eastwood and you talked about Nelson, Nelson Mandela.

And although you weren't able to interview him, you were able to interview key people around him.

How do you stay true to what Carole's philosophy is, is bringing that reconciliation, bringing who they truly are, which is inherently good.

How do you bring that out as a documentary filmmaker?

Well, first you have to have the focus that that's what you want to bring out.

So the the intention is very important.

Then you have to research a subject to know, are they guarded or are they open or they suspicious.

Are they going to challenge you or do they welcome you?

Do they have a message they want to push?

How do you get them to express their authentic selves?

So that's all you do going into it.

That being said, it's the relationship that you develop.

You know, people have a sense about you.

It's a relationship you develop so that they open up to you and I have to say, in the when we went to South Africa and did the reconciliation movie, everyone we interviewed cried, there was a minute Albie Sachs, who was still alive, who wrote the first Constitution for post-apartheid South Africa, and he had had his arm blown off, that South African police had planted car bomb.

He was an amazing man.

And, we interviewed many people who were very instrumental in ending apartheid, who were icons of that movement.

They all cried.

So if you set the right tone with people and they feel your heart is into it, they open up to you.

The one funny story there is we, as a producer of that documentary, I spent months setting up interviews, and the key was to book Desmond Tutu and F w de Klerk and then everybody else around those two, because those are the most high profile people.

Your central subjects, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So there's something called the Apartheid Museum in South Africa, and it's a phenomenal museum.

And it it of course has a lot of video footage, a lot of facts about the history of apartheid and, the, the movement to end apartheid.

So de Klerk could agree to an interview, but he apparently didn't look at all the other subject matters and who we were interviewing.

So he kind of storms into the room and says, you went to the Apartheid Museum.

I'm not gonna let you interview me because you interview me because you're going to be biased.

Like, I thought we were gonna set a trap for him.

Yes.

And, you know, we had spent months arranging this, so, my late husband, who was the director, said, let me just give me five minutes.

And he said, okay, just five minutes.

We sat down and two hours later we finished the interview because once he realized we wanted him to express his his truth, he he was open to that because he realized we didn't want to lay a trap for him.

So I think good documentary filmmaking, you were able to go in and give that person space, to give them space to open up and not box them in with, predetermined concepts or prejudices.

Although, as a filmmaker, like I said, you have to have a point of view.

You do, but you also have to be open to, as Clint actually said, happy accidents.

Oh, you know, that's a great way to end our first segment.

When we come back, I want you to, tell our audience how these two documentaries lead into the documentary that you have in production now and then also to let's continue to talk about Carol as the artist as well, because that does play into your documentary filmmaking.

I Come back to hear more from Carol Hear that?

Good.

That's the sound of your life.

Perfectly imperfect.

But every time you drive after drinking, the music gets drowned out.

Your life sounds pretty great.

Don't let a buzz ruin it.

Buzzed driving is drunk.

Driving.

Don't drive.

Buzzed.

Welcome back.

Carol, thank you so much for that first segment and letting our audience get to know who you are, which explains the type of documentary filmmaking that you're making, but also it explains you as an artist.

However, I forgot about a documentary that we didn't talk about in the first segment.

We actually went to India.

Well, okay.

After, South Africa, yes.

The next film we wanted to make, was another about reconciliation from a point of view of another great leader, and that was Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar.

That being said, we heard her speak until 2012, the first time she was allowed out of the country.

And we, filmed her and someone asked her about the Rohingya, who are a very persecuted minority in Burma, which is now called Myanmar.

And she was very huffy.

Well, people just follow the rule of law.

There would be no problem.

And someone asked, what would you do about it if you were president?

She said, well, I'm not president, am I?

So my late husband and I looked at each other like, we can't use her as the focus of the documentary.

So instead we focused in on leading pro-democracy people in Myanmar.

And it was a time in 2014 when there had been a, there'd been a dictatorship there for the past 60 years, very, very brutal and surprisingly, the president in 2012 eased up some of the restrictions.

So there was an explosion of newspapers, free media, the military still had 51% of the, parliament.

So they no matter how much the other 49% voted, they still split this over the majority.

But it was definitely a period of freedom when it was on the horizon.

So we were there at that time, and we had also, once again, amazing people who had been either jailed and tortured.

That was just goes without saying or in exile, and they were just freed like a year or two years before we interviewed them, because it was 2012 when the dictatorship loosened up and they lit out of prison.

The pro-democracy people who'd been in prison since 1988 when there was a big student demonstration, most of them were in prison for 20 years or so.

Not unlike the people in South Africa who had been on Robben Island.

So it's very similar.

And, we were very hopeful.

Tell me more about it.

Well, 2014 was the time when there was a liberalization in Myanmar.

So a lot of the pro-democracy leaders have been in jail since 1988.

And the 2012, when there was a liberalization, they were let out of prison.

People who had been in exile returned, and there was an explosion of newspaper person, arts.

And it was a period of great hopefulness in the country.

And so it fell in line with, my husband's and I are subject matter of peace and reconciliation.

And like South Africa, the people we talked to in Myanmar all had been the same story.

They protested, they were put in jail.

They were tortured.

They were held in jail for like 20 years, terrible stories.

So dictatorships around the world have a lot in common, I'm sorry to say so.

On the way home from Myanmar, my husband started having a pain in his left hip.

And he was dead two months later from cancer.

So that was almost 11 years ago.

So, and it was the first time I was a cinematographer because right before our shoot, the cinematographer, we had found that he had brain cancer.

And I had a camera because I'm a painter.

I always used a camera for filming or taking photographs of a subject matter.

So I called a director friend of mine and got a really fast lesson using a, camera to film movie camera.

And so I became the cinematographer, and that was sort of a happy accident.

Not that the DP had brain cancer, but I learned something about film filming as the cinematographer.

So after my husband passed away, well, I had so much footage I shot on my own and it turned out okay because for many years I watched him in the editing room.

So I kind of knew through us Moses kind of what what to try to shoot.

And it was a 15 minute short bit at one of a lot of awards and festivals.

And, that was the end of that chapter, because up until that point, our films and reconciliation dealt with political, movements such as South Africa and Myanmar.

But because I was a practicing Buddhist, and my teachers, Helen, my husband, we had a very, you know, good marriage, they started inviting me to India and because now I had a good camera for shooting video, I started shooting some video of my teachers.

There were Tibetan Buddhist teachers, and they never had professional grade images taken of them.

So and I was first the student, so they trusted me.

So I was allowed to film in the monastery for normal.

You're never allowed to film.

These are monasteries in the Himalayas in India.

So from 2014, when my husband died to now, I'm actually going to be filming the cremation of one of my teachers in the Himalayas this April April 2025.

I've been filming them and I, I've made actually five films just for the Buddhist community, because to do a film for the public, you need to have a lot of, explanation.

And I was filming things in Tibetan, and, I was busy focusing on the teacher who just died because nobody else had really, top quality photographs.

Just even iPhones weren't good enough until now.

And even an iPhone.

Yes.

You can't blow it up on a movie screen and have it look the way the camera looks.

So, so for the last ten years and almost 11 years now, I've been focused on filming in India.

Well, you mentioned something about you picking up a camera and becoming a cinematographer.

And so my question to you is, how does your vision change when now you're the person looking through the eye of the camera, or does it?

Well, the world becomes a shot.

Everything I look at becomes a potential shot.

When the camera, when I'm holding the camera, I don't see.

I don't see life as I do.

Without the camera, everything becomes, what do I want to capture for a movie?

So the whole the whole world is a is a is a pre edited, thing that I do with the camera.

I don't just roll aimlessly.

I know what I want to capture.

And so I am always on the lookout for the moment that I want to get.

And then like I said, always, there's a happy accident.

So you always also have to be ready for the happy accident.

That's why when the camera's in my hand, I'm on duty like 100% of the time.

Well, and whenever I hear happy accident, I'm going to think of Clint Eastwood.

Now, because, I mean, if you think about that philosophy, that's a really great philosophy, especially as documentary filmmakers, because we want those happy accidents, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And also, I think that with the passing of a mate of 30 years who is also a partner in film, it allowed me to really just follow my own path.

I mean, our paths were synchronized with each other, but once you're on your own, it became clear to me that I wanted to devote my life to filming people, events that were really contributing to the society, and not necessarily in a political way.

As in South Africa.

The film in South Africa, no one in Myanmar had a lot to do with the politics in the country.

So my emphasis changed to filming more about the spiritual life of people who pray, meditate, follow.

It could be Buddhism, it could be Hinduism, it could be Catholicism, any religion, the basis of every world, religions, compassion and peacemaking.

Because I see your background, especially being raised by the type of parents that you had, especially focus on societal issues.

But what you've done in the past, what does that have to do with the film that you have in production right now?

Okay, so following, my decision to do more spiritual films, I was hired by a, Methadone clinic in Denver.

And they're actually the biggest providers of methadone in the city of Colorado.

They have something like 12 centers.

They hired me to do a film about fentanyl.

Because fentanyl is the largest cause of death of people between the ages of 12 and 49.

Major cause of death.

And it beat out what was a cancer.

Car accidents?

Yes.

Leukemia.

Whatever.

Yes.

Largest, greatest cause of death between ages 12 and 49 was fentanyl.

And now, what happens is China supplies the wrong ingredients.

Okay.

Then they are sent to Mexico where they're synthesized into fentanyl, and then it's distributed to our country.

And it's been catastrophic because It's eliminated heroin because heroin comes from a poppy crop.

You can only have maybe two crops a year.

Fentanyl is a chemical combination.

And.

If you imagine grains of fentanyl on the tip of a pencil, sharpened pencil.

Okay, that much can kill you.

So what's happening now?

And for the last five, six, seven years is that fentanyl is mixed in with, say, you take a value that you think you're buying from, you know, a drug dealer, but you think it's the real thing.

And it's been mixed with fentanyl.

So many, many young people die.

I mean, they don't even have to be drug addicts per se.

Know?

They're just thinking they're gonna have fun at a party or get a little high in their bedroom and their parents find them dead.

This is very common.

When I did the first shoot on this documentary called dying for relief, because most of these people are doing that.

It's a high tech narcotic.

They're doing it because they have some kind of pain.

And I interviewed 12, people at one of the methadone clinics there, almost mostly between the ages of 20 and 35.

Most of them had very traumatic childhood.

I mean, people have happy childhoods generally don't tend to need to escape, but happy childhoods aren't as common as one might think.

We talk about how our childhood impacts the decisions we make and how this is really impacting our country, our country right now.

So before we end our conversation, can you let our audience know how we can continue to support you so that we can get this message out?

Well, there's a website and you can somehow get that out.

Yes we will.

Okay.

Yes.

Documentary filmmaking, unfortunately, has become difficult because money is scarce and even famous filmmakers have to go with their head in their hand to their friends.

A lot of small companies have been absorbed by bigger companies who want to make films about star, celebrities, athletes.

And so the more it's not even controversial subject matter, just human human stories and unusual stories don't catch the eye like a celebrity does or a star athlete.

So it's a pity that this.

But, you know, there are a lot of things that could be improved upon in our world.

Well, in you are improving our world with everything that you're doing, and your story has been so inspiring.

When you are done with that documentary, I hope we can talk again.

Absence starts out on the film festival circuit, so thank you.

Thank you, Carol, And thank you for joining us on everybody with Angela Williamson.

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