Maryland Film Festival Blog

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED!  Maryland Film Festival is proud to bring back to Baltimore one of MFF 2014’s most provocative, insightful, personal, and inspiring films, EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL! Director Darius Clark Monroe will be with us to introduce his work and answer your questions after the film!  This screening will take place on Monday, March 30th at 7:30pm at the MICA Brown Center.

This film will be part of the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series and WYPR’s Sheilah Kast will conduct a 10 minute interview with Darius Clark Monroe following the screening. Click here for a listing of previous Spotlight Series podcasts: http://programs.wypr.org/podcast/maryland-film-festival/wypr-spotlight-series

Event Info:
Monday, March 30
7:30pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 W. Mt. Royal Avenue
$10/free for Friends of the Festival

How does a 16-year-old go from honors student to bank robber? Filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe explores the financial desperation that led him to turn to crime as a teenager in Texas, and returns to the scene of the crime to interview family members, close friends, and mentors to reflect on the aftermath.

Vital, thoughtful, and deeply personal, first-timer Darius Clark Monroe’s autobiographical doc stands as a testament to the power of movies to stir empathy.
— Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

Its images, its shape, its tone, and its implications make it a terrific movie, as well as the birth of an artist.
— Richard Brody, The New Yorker

MFF 2014’s program notes:
Darius Clark Monroe’s EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL brings something new to the world of film. In examining a bank robbery committed by Texas high-school students, Monroe’s film interweaves suspenseful reenactment footage with candid interviews from people involved in every angle of the crime. We hear from participants, victims, family members, and law-enforcement officials, all very open in discussing how the crime impacted them at the time, and how they relate to it now. The twist? The filmmaker himself was one of the men involved in the robbery.

With an unflinching eye, Monroe dissects the various factors that drove him from a lighthearted childhood to this extreme act, giving us first-person access to both the facts and the emotional weight embedded in the planning, the crime, and its aftermath. In the process, he not only reconnects with the people with whom he robbed the bank, but also reaches out to people on the receiving end of the crime.

Executive-produced by Spike Lee and a hit at its SXSW 2014 premiere, EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL is a unique project delivered with great skill, confidence, and insight. Occupying its own niche at the intersection of documentary, true crime, and personal essay, it’s both a gripping viewing experience and a conversation-starter—about race, class, education, and the prison system, just for starters—of the highest order. (Eric Allen Hatch)