Courtroom 3H
(Courtroom 3H)
Antonio Méndez Esparza | Documentary
2020 | 115 minutes | Spain, United States
Shot in a single courtroom over the course of a month, the film takes viewers inside Florida’s Tallahassee Unified Family Court, which specializes in judicial cases involving minors. Cases of abuse, abandonment, and negligence are presided over with the express objective, under the law, to reunite families as quickly and safely as possible.
Synopsis
Raw and powerful, Courtroom 3H marks a confident documentary debut from director Antonio Méndez Esparza (Here and There). Shot in a single courtroom over the course of a month, the film takes viewers inside Florida’s Tallahassee Unified Family Court, which specializes in judicial cases involving minors. Cases of abuse, abandonment, and negligence are presided over with the express objective, under the law, to reunite families as quickly and safely as possible.
Filtered through courtroom professionalism and presented with an observational distance, a sequence of staggeringly emotional hearings and trials hints at the complexities of these family stories, calling into question a justice system with the power to decide who is suitable to be a parent and who is not, but that is incapable of addressing underlying societal structures and often multi-generational pain.
Shining a needed light on the economic disparities underlying so much of what occurs in the US justice system, Courtroom 3H offers another profoundly sensitive portrait of family at the mercy of the system.
Reviews
"Plunging the viewer straight into Tallahassee's family court, this questioning, challenging film will travel to wherever fine and nuanced cinema is celebrated." — Fionnuala Halligan, Screen Daily
"By the end, though we have often been sad, we should also feel some satisfaction that the system can work. It's not very pretty, but it's still a beautiful thing." — Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Festival Today
"This is emotion in the raw, not just from those faced with the possibility of seeing someone else take on responsibility for their kids, but also from the advocates representing them who are being put through the emotional wringer as well." — Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
"A sometimes shocking, sometimes uncomfortable, but nuanced and necessary look into a world too few people know about." — Zaki Hasan, Mill Valley Film Festival
"[Méndez Esparza's] work has always been sensitive and sympathetic to the lives of the least privileged, and so this foray into the documentary form is not the volte-face it may first appear." — Alfonso Rivera, Cineuropa
"By simply presenting reality as it happens, the audience becomes the eyewitness to the legal process and the people who are at its mercy, so we start to reconsider our own prejudices." — Melbourne Documentary Film Festival
Citation
Main credits
Méndez Esparza, Antonio (filmmaker)
Hernández Santos, Pedro (film producer)
Other credits
Cinematography, Barbu Balasoiu, Santiago Oveido; editor, Santiago Oveido.
Citation
Cataloging
Pragda subjects
Criminal Justice
Economics + Social Class Issues
Family
Human Rights
Latinx
Migration Studies
North America
Political Science
Sociology
Youth
Keywords
Clips
Festivals
San Sebastián International Film Festival
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
Tokyo International Film Festival
Mill Valley Film Festival
Tallahassee Film Festival
DIRECTOR: Antonio Méndez Esparza
NATIONALITY: Spain, United States
YEAR: 2020
GENRE: Documentary
LANGUAGE: English
COLOR / B&W: Color
GRADE LEVEL: High School, College, Adults
SUBTITLE/CC: AVAILABLE
AUDIO DESCRIPTION: NOT AVAILABLE
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