Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey made just one mistake, and it was a fatal one: He wouldn’t stop investigating a story. When Chauncey was murdered in 2007, most likely by members of the Your Black Muslim Bakery family, all of us lost a fearless reporter willing to make a personal sacrifice for the greater good. Just like journalism used to be.
In his documentary A Day Late in Oakland, emerging Bay Area filmmaker Zack Stauffer traces the Bailey case and shows the arc of that editor’s life, the disregard the mainstream media showed to his warnings about the Bey family and the “day late” efforts to unmask his killers after his death. Screening April 3 as part of the Fairfax Documentary Film Festival, A Day Late is just one of several stellar new works being screened.
It’s not all tales of woe, however, given the April 5 screening of results of the festival’s annual challenge. On the fest’s opening day, filmmakers are given a cinematic treasure hunt to complete in making an off-the-cuff instant doc about the quirky town of Fairfax, and then they must actually show it to others. The Fairfax Documentary Film Fest screens April 3&–5. See Film listings, adjacent.
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