Latest / Book Flood Podcast / Kim Snyder & Janique Robillard on Creating "The Librarians" Documentary (E55)

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Kim Snyder & Janique Robillard on Creating "The Librarians" Documentary (E55) · Book Flood Podcast

• speaker-0: Welcome to the Book Flood podcast. I am your host, Tom Nixon. Our guests this week are two of the creators of the Librarians documentary, Kim A. Snyder and Janique L. Robillard. Welcome Janique, welcome Kim. Hi. speaker-1: Thanks for having us. speaker-0: absolutely. Why we start a little bit with each you giving us ⁓ an idea your career trajectory. How did you get to here? speaker-2: Okay. I'm Janique. I'm one of the producers on the film. And I got into documentary filmmaking through journalism and I didn't realize that motion picture was even an option for my career because I wasn't exposed to other people doing that for a living until I was finishing a journalism degree. But it kind of took into account the research storytelling interview and get to make something out of that work. And I connected with Kim ⁓ doing impact producing, which is the phase we're in now on the librarians on her and Maria's last feature film, Us Kids. ⁓ And did a lot of work ⁓ after film premiered to get ⁓ voters. ⁓ registered and to the polls and ⁓ to reach community members with conversations about gun violence prevention. So that's how Kim and I first ⁓ and started working together before the librarians film. speaker-1: And yeah, for me, I grew up in a family of artists. My dad was an artist and I thought I wanted to veer off from that and ended up doing graduate work in international politics and relations. And then made an unexpected turn in my ⁓ to filmmaking through a series of events. And ⁓ I kind always felt like I wanted to be. ⁓ documenting history, basically. And some series of life events threw me into first the production track. In my ⁓ 30s, I had fairly serious illness that ⁓ failed me for time and that unexpectedly threw me into That was my first, it was a very personal work called I Remember Me. And ⁓ From there, I just got much into a track of making documentaries that lifted up voices of that hadn't been heard, ⁓ stories hadn't been told by, you know, and it ranged. I did a lot of short films. I ended up by happenstance in Newtown, Connecticut and made a film called Newtown that tracked the mass, the horrible mass shooting that happened there. And I documented the grief and trauma of one community in the fallout of gun violence. And that threw me into a decade of storytelling around ⁓ gun violence and grief and trauma and activism that with the film that Janik's mentioning with Us Kids. And that finally landed us in a short that garnered us this time last year an Academy Award nomination. short film called Death by Numbers. And Janique and I did that together in Florida with a gun violence survivor that we had met in my former film in Parkland. And then one night I saw a story about a list of books in Texas in the fall of 21 that had been singled out, 850 of them. to be removed from library school shelves and a group of librarians calling themselves the Freedom Fighters that were organizing and reacting to this. And that was four years ago. And so Janique and I and two other producing partners ⁓ on that track to make the film, The Librarians. speaker-0: What is the process you use when deciding to take on a project? What makes a good project? What is not a good project? speaker-1: Well, for me, although the films that I've done have been, guess what we would call have a lot of social impact, ⁓ never originate there. I never set out saying there's an issue and I want to make a film about the issue. The stories have found me through a combination of happenstance. I always say creativity and how these things originate ⁓ mysterious. There are a lot like romance. ⁓ You know, there's an attraction, you can't explain it. happenstance, there's luck. And ⁓ it's, just, you know, the older I've gotten, the more I've learned to follow my instinct because sometimes there's a number of those things. And you to, you know, on this one, I jumped on it and said, we need to go to Texas and meet these women. I have a strong feeling about it. Back four years ago, one of those librarians said, you know, we at the school libraries are the canaries in the coal mine. little we know four years later how prescient those words would be because now attack on our ⁓ of thought, freedom of ⁓ access to information permeated the public libraries and the museums and it's just so topical. But we wouldn't have known that four years ago. So you really don't know. And you do, I think for me, like I said, it's an instinctual thing of finding stories. And I am a little bit spiritual about feeling they find me for some higher reason in the universe these things find me and are meant to be because they're not me. They are a whole group of people. that find themselves together in a big village, Janik producing an amazing group of executive producers and all these librarians that were like the Wizard of Oz. know, we just kept sort of going and finding a new story and they build and that whole community that was formed around this film is what's made this film. I feel like ⁓ the it's having, which we could tell you about, ⁓ is than the ⁓ sum the parts. speaker-0: Do you ever get into a project like this and then decide that it's just not going to work? speaker-1: Yes, there are definitely projects right now. Some of them I have faith if it's meant to be, ⁓ with them. There's a couple of things in the vault like that that we've begun that are more political ⁓ in the environment we're in, as you well probably know, these are harder to land right now. They're with the consolidation of the streamers. But... for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the access becomes more difficult, but that's where you sort of say, this one, everything just kept lining up. There were no, and the same thing happened with Newtown. It's like, I don't know, like a video game where you keep, like something keeps opening and you advance to the next. I have come to say when it's, ⁓ you, not going to say it's ever easy. But when those things line up where it's like, ⁓ my goodness, this happened and then that happened, and you start to feel more and more like, okay, the doors are opening and this is sort of meant to happen. speaker-2: Yeah, and I think on a micro level within each project, a, this was meant to be, and this wasn't meant to be. ⁓ moments that you have to stay really kind of flexible and adaptable throughout each project because at the end of the day, it's real life, it's real people's experiences. Like Kim was saying, access and trust and collaboration with all of our film participants is a big part of it. But the filming process on librarians was three and a half or for years that we were on the road and filming. So there would be times where you could think maybe the story goes here next or maybe the story will end here and you have to be patient and maybe the thing you expected happen doesn't come to fruition. And so there's that constant evolution of the story. speaker-1: Yeah, I think that's a great point that I think I've observed that most good documentarians that I've respected, there's a kind of the pivot, ⁓ there's the muscles of uncertainty and when to say, okay, I'm going to leave that character. I'm going to leave that direction, storyline. And with the librarians, was such a, ⁓ I used to it's like an octopus. because do you sort of, ⁓ were just cards all over the wall about the books ⁓ the authors and the, it's such a huge ecosystem. And how do you tell the story without talking about school boards, without talking about white Christian nationalism? And we did get, I think a lot. So we started to see it an Odyssey. But I think the central thing for me was there had been a lot, not a lot, but we'd seen a number of things about book banning. But we hadn't seen really anything that talked about the siege on our librarians. And that's what we tried to stay through as a spine the idea that we were the shock of learning four years ago that we were living now in a country where the idea of arresting our librarians was actually a reality and on the table. speaker-0: I am now a retired librarian, but once upon a time I was a library services manager for a large school district here in California. And of this makes so much sense except, you know, I live in California, so we make assumptions about things out here. And you a lot of your folks in places like Texas and Louisiana. But we had these things happening out here too, speaker-1: Huntington and... Right? Exactly. And we were, I was blessed you know, we have just done so many things in the past year with this film, but we were invited just Friday. We screened, ⁓ did a panel with Governor Newsom and First Partner. And we ⁓ you I was standing there proudly with Martha, one of our librarians, because he did, was one of the pioneers in the country of passing. important legislation of the Freedom to Read bill that's been replicated in I think 13 states that does have protections for librarians. So, you know, we go around and we see the good and the bad, the kind of preemptive things and the scary things that are, you know, in places more like Texas, Florida, Utah, and a whole number of states ⁓ we could name. But it's not to say that there ⁓ I haven't counted how many states, I'm sitting next to Jeanine, that's how keep, haven't counted how many states the film has screened in, but ⁓ would venture to say, if not every of our states, nearly ⁓ maybe should count. speaker-2: I think since... speaker-1: since Sunday on Fin. speaker-2: last month that we did hit every state because Mississippi and Oklahoma were two states that we still had not screened in until I think it was in January and February. We were able to do screenings there, but we did, like Kim was saying, film festivals and our theatrical release and then community and impact screenings and libraries. speaker-1: these screenings have been a kind of field of dreams. It was a vision I had. What if, despite what we're hearing a lot of doom and gloom in the independent documentary space, what if this film actually could show in theaters, libraries, campuses throughout the country with town hall-like conversations? ⁓ it's happened and they're selling out and they're selling out mostly in the middle of the country. And what I was about to say is, between our librarians, ⁓ and myself, sometimes together, sometimes ⁓ the same days deployed into different states, we are seeing a lot of hope, but we're also seeing that there's rarely a place where someone doesn't say, this is happening right over here, or I had this happen. We had it. ⁓ So, you know, in places like Berkeley and Cambridge. you the message has been be vigilant and know this isn't just, ⁓ that's crazy ⁓ speaker-0: you go down a rabbit hole there and it doesn't work out well for you because it's everywhere. You mentioned the impact. How do you assess the impact of the librarians? speaker-2: Um, that's a great question. Uh, so once the film was premiering at Sundance, January, 2025, we knew our impact phase or impact campaign, as we refer to it with documentary films was also going to start at Sundance. So right, right off the bat, we were looking to align with different, um, partners who were leaders in the freedom to read space and them in the room with us because like Kim was saying, these town hall conversations provide opportunities for local community members to connect on the issue, for librarians to be empowered that they are not facing this alone. Martha Hickson so often would refer to school librarians as sole practitioners. And what we were finding when we would meet and Zoom with librarians in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, that there was this sense of battling these attacks in very isolated silo. They were only person in the community being attacked. they sometimes, one said, I felt like was the only sane person in a thousand mile radius. So it was finding empowerment and connection for librarians and building what we call librarians without borders ⁓ uniting them across districts, ⁓ ⁓ even internationally in our work that we've done in the UK and Germany. It's also looking at being able to spark hyper-local civic engagement. So much of the film plays out in School Board. and library board meetings, county commissioner meetings in Lano, Texas, where Suzette Baker's story plays out, really taking the opportunity when people are in the room together for those screenings to talk more about how they can get involved in their communities. And I don't know if you want to share more about in Texas what we saw in the spring and fall school board elections around that hyper local engagement piece. speaker-1: Sure. mean, I think the two of the standout, there've been so many stories of impact as we've traversed the world. But, you know, some of the standout stories are in Texas that we can pretty confidently say that we affected school board races in both cycles in 2025. In the Dallas area, We won an award at the Dallas Film Festival. There were sold out screenings. It was 48 hours before those races. And our ⁓ subjects got up and said, you know, we need you. There's about an average of a 6 % turnout at school board races. And you hear in our film, Steve Bannon saying, school boards are the key that picks the lock. So the grassroots, mobilizing we've able to do of encouraging people to ⁓ ⁓ show up and vote in school boards that this is not. We've learned also through these travels that it's not a partisan issue or doesn't, that it's cutting across those lines and that, you know, most Americans really feel that censorship is just so fundamentally un-American, especially when like the character in our film, Courtney Gore, a, in the beginning, she buys into this mom's for liberty rhetoric or propaganda that there's there's obscenity in the school libraries. And she does the research and realizes that what's behind this has nothing to do with reality. And that this is a this is a very well funded politically, politically operative initiative to take down public education. So we saw that in Dallas, we then were invited to screen in Granbury, which is sort of an epicenter story in the film, one of the book zealots in our film ran for that board on a of extremist platform and she was defeated. We saw in the fall and recently, really some hope in tea leaves in the recent election in Texas with Lee Wansbub. speaker-2: Yeah, Lee Wamsgams, who's the head of communications with Patriot Mobile, which Patriot Mobile has a pack and organized to run, I think it was 13 different candidates in the 2002-22 school board cycle around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. But a number of the school board members who they had campaigned for and poured tons of money into, as well as a number of candidates that were either from Moms for Liberty chapters or Moms for Liberty kind of aligned their campaigns were defeated last year. I it was ⁓ 33 Moms for candidates who ran with an opposing candidate ⁓ lost their races. So Kim said, think people ⁓ filling theaters shows us that people are open to conversations about book banning, that people are ⁓ ⁓ interested, curious about what's been happening and hopefully watching the film and being sparked into some kind of action, even if it's ⁓ meeting their librarians at the theater, their library cards, attending a school board meeting, speaking up at a school board meeting. speaker-1: And we have a lot of plans in the works to do a lot of this with the upcoming midterm cycle in 26 to work very strategically throughout the country to make sure this film is available in these eventized ways ⁓ this civic engagement on a local level. And the other thing we'll just throw in is that ⁓ mentioned the international, that was an unknown to us. When we screened, we thought, well, is this going to be seen as a sort of myopic? American story or will it resound beyond these borders? And luckily, well, I don't know about luckily, but we've learned that, you ⁓ we have screened at like international conferences in Toronto with heads of the most prominent libraries in the world there. We screened in the UK, theatrically, but at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. And behind closed doors started to learn back in June that those head librarians were telling us that this was seeping in over there and that the same organized efforts and language was being verbatim exported from here. And finding, I think, organic homegrown sentiment in the same way. And we're seeing that in Alberta, Canada. In Australia. ⁓ and, and one of the most touching things I think for us was that the day back in June, the day after the, ⁓ our librarian of Congress, Dr. Hayden was fired. back then we, got email from the German national library saying in light of this, we just want you to know that there are hundreds of German librarians who know all too well what this can, ⁓ foretell. And we're inviting you to come. to screen and we did screen twice now. I went with Martha and stood in Berlin, arm to arm with German librarians at the 1933 book banning Memorial. And we've been invited back to Leipzig to screen again with the German national library. So the invitations are sort of exponential because the proliferation of extremists right wing. developments around the world that often, as we know from history, take root in the library and with the books and with librarians. ⁓ I said, ⁓ like the Field of Dreams vision. The other vision I had was that ⁓ lifting up this story, librarians ⁓ pierce through this overwhelming noise that we're being assaulted with so many. horrific things in the news and that they would be symbolic of a sort of beacon of integrity of standing up for what's right and that's happening. And it's really cool that young people are taking that in. That's an unexpected. Young people are loving the film and people say young people don't watch documentaries. when they show up, that just happened on Friday again, are riveted. They understand it. They know very well that books save lives for especially young marginalized people. they understand that this is a real affront to their rights. So it's exciting to see this taking root in the youth movement. speaker-0: The librarians has won a number of awards. Is there one in particular that stands out? speaker-1: ⁓ boy. being starting out at Sundance and being nominated for the grand jury prize there is it was a great start. And I think to date, I think ⁓ won 28 maybe it's been really I think the audience awards ⁓ are across the board. Juried awards are wonderful be recognized by our peers. But I think The audience awards there's hundreds of people and sold out shows is just so gratifying to know that ⁓ why ⁓ wanted to invest in this kind of energy around the release of the film is that ⁓ we this ⁓ to seen. You know, we were shocked ⁓ when released our trailer, ⁓ the theatrical run, films like this, ⁓ you expect New York, LA, we've been in almost 200 theaters. been ⁓ hundreds and hundreds of libraries. It's just been amazing that way. knowing that the audiences ⁓ are, just get immediate feedback every day. Janique just was in Door County, Wisconsin, where we won ⁓ our most recent speaker-2: Yes, yeah. And someone said after the screening, we wished that they had just pulled up a bench and we could have stayed in the theater and kept talking. And it's like that type of feedback, like Kim is saying, from audiences that they really want to be part of this dialogue is the most meaningful thing that it doesn't start ⁓ end when the credits roll, the conversation's not over, that this is a film that is continuing conversations. And I always hope that all the work that all of the film participants, all the librarians in the film, Kim, myself, our producing partners, and everybody who's been attending these screenings to have these conversations, that takeaways that kind of, a ripple effect the theater that people can go home ⁓ and share more others around them, especially now that the film is on. ⁓ PBS and folks are able to go and watch it. And hearing too, we were in Alabama recently and that people with the film on PBS and streaming, people say, we knew it was available online, but we wanted to come see it with others. So they still came out their Thursday night. They came out to watch it in the theater with other people. So. ⁓ speaker-1: I our partner And Tom, to your point about impact, you know, we're so proud to be partnering with Public Television and we know they've been under attack. Independent Lens, I've partnered with them. They're a great strand and they do metrics and they said they've never seen in these surveys results, they've never seen this kind of feedback that, you know, I think, I don't know, 50 % of people said that they were now going to go and vote their school board races, all kinds of stats that are very encouraging about what this is moving people ⁓ do once they see it. speaker-0: is it like working with so many librarians and library related people? speaker-1: Well, for me, it's the gift that keeps giving. We're on a personal thread. These are personal friendships now. I couldn't have more respect. They me hope and courage. ⁓ Literally single morning I wake up in a time that it's easy to be really demoralized. And they're also, ⁓ I ⁓ wicked and wicked funny. So it's just been... You know, I guess if I had thought about it hard, walking into the librarian world, that's one of the gifts of being a documentarian. You get to drop in to a whole new world. And so you're perpetually traveling, so to speak, in life. I love that. It's being a perpetual student and an adventurer. dropping into this particular world, it's... It's just this constant like, of course they have all this information there. know, like there's never ⁓ moment where there isn't a smart commentary, an editorial, funny of ideas. ⁓ mean, just, who doesn't want to be around. And they happen to be a lot of women. although there's some great men that we've, we've met along the trail, but, ⁓ how about you, Janique? ⁓ speaker-2: think too in the filmmaking you couldn't have better people ⁓ work with because ⁓ much ⁓ the film is this digging of archives, present day archives, news archives, information requests, lists, ⁓ data. just all this evidence, right, of what's happening in the now, and then also that historical conversation. So one of the things that I think both of us took great pleasure in during the filmmaking process was if we were digging into a historical thread, if we could find anything that our librarians did not know, it was like we had really achieved something in our kind of then and now different ⁓ key moments in censorship history, different landmark moves by librarians in the past, but it was always really exciting if we could unearth something that our did not already know. ⁓ So I it pushed us to dig deeper probably in that discovery process. speaker-1: wanted to impress them, but I also just want to say that they have been so attacked and the things they've gone through personally with death threats, with being called groomers and pedophiles. mean, the ⁓ I get of their sense ⁓ catharsis and vindication in ⁓ screenings been, and being able to include them has been incredibly satisfying because they deserve it. And not to generalize, but you know, our field, I am going to stereotype here, you know, it's, it's got its fair dose of ego in the movie business and all of that. Librarian world, you know, as Audrey says in the beginning, who's anonymous then, you know, we're not supposed to be seen and felt. So I think as a profession, these really are teachers in general, ⁓ people who are. public servants who are doing, they're in the kid business it's school libraries. They do it for the kids. That dedication is so heartfelt and their integrity to standing up for on the front lines of our democracy. It's ⁓ genuine. And I think we're living in a time where there's just, we need We're looking for these heroes. do see them as patriots. They're really reclaiming My sense of patriotism, I would say. speaker-0: So what's next? speaker-1: Well, we can't, this is an unusual film for me in that usually a year out you're like, okay, know, did that. Not the case. I think because of the time we're living in, we feel a responsibility and a doggedness to continue through 26 to be on the trail of using this film in the best of our capacity for impact. And there are other projects and I think ⁓ For me personally, I'm in rooms every night with colleagues in the documentary space talking about this merger, what that's going to mean. We also are facing the chilling effect. That's a whole other conversation, but ⁓ like librarians and what's happening in the library is that's happening in ⁓ all spaces the media. And so making films that are political, are in any way unearthing the injustices we're seeing around the world and in our country are less less likely to be funded and distributed. So those are You don't want to make a film that doesn't get out there. ⁓ So lots of about alternative distribution. We're very lucky. with this film that's being shown in every in the country through PBS, free on YouTube, hundreds as we said, theatrical, we've done it all internationally, broadcasters, ZDF. this is it, but ⁓ would happen with another film right now that has political ⁓ overtones? I know. And what that means about... ⁓ I find myself thinking a lot more about what if and metaphor, scripted work, may have historical allegory. This film has made me much more excited about doing more with archives, like I really enjoyed it. So those are some of the things in ⁓ my head. also not adverse to... things that are joyful. has been hard. The films I've made for the last decade or so have been ⁓ with trauma. so I love music. You know, and I do think that we have to, I just believe all of the arts right now, whatever arena are gonna be our salvation in getting through these times. ⁓ I'm very honored and feel very blessed to be in the creator. side of that. speaker-2: No, I agree with everything you're saying. like Kim said, it's just hard to extract ourselves from the impact work that we're doing. speaker-1: addictive and compulsive right now. speaker-2: feels like we still have the ability to ⁓ bringing people together for these conversations around our First Amendment rights and freedom of expression ⁓ protections for librarians and diverse library collections. ⁓ And not the time stop doing that. It's just too critical of ⁓ a time in our history that we're experiencing. So we're really dedicated to continuing that work. speaker-0: So I have a couple of questions that I ask everybody. one of them is, is there a book or a series of books from your childhood that still resonates with you? speaker-1: Well, for me, I loved Harriet the Spy. I ⁓ all I did love Fahrenheit, but I was a Ray Bradbury freak. So anything that was Ray Bradbury, I just was like that. as a younger adult, Another band book that had a big impression on me was Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut. And then of course, Toni Morrison. mean, there's just, and now I'm, this project has gotten me more in touch with some of the modern, current examples of certain band books. Another huge in my life was Thomas Mons, The Magic Mountain. speaker-2: ⁓ guess one collection of books that... My younger brother and I both loved when we were younger was the Choose Your Own Adventure series. were fun because we could read them over and over again. And the author actually has ties to our hometown in Vermont. And my brother was working at a local deli and made a sandwich for him and realized the connection these books that we were obsessed with when we were younger. ⁓ and he dropped off a stack of them our house for us, which was really nice. But ⁓ we just kind of the twisty, turny narrative ⁓ of And I think I was always really interested since I was younger, and it makes sense with documentaries, but ⁓ I would devour any historical fiction or nonfiction ⁓ ever since I was and it's still. ⁓ memoirs and nonfiction books that are my main fare. speaker-0: Well, Kim and Janique, I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast for our listeners and watchers. Please remember to like, subscribe and share. And again, thank you, Kim. Thank you. speaker-1: Thanks so much, speaker-2: Thank you, great to meet you. speaker-0: to meet you too.