By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
Filmmaker Jonathan Cipiti started out making videos with his high school friends just for fun.
Now his name is attached to a new documentary being shown in theaters June 17 and 19.
The project, titled “Emanuel,” concerns the 2015 shooting perpetrated by Dylann Roof that left nine dead at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Cipiti, the editor behind the film, said the story takes a different turn than audiences might expect.
“The real story is when the victims’ families two days later go to the bond hearing and forgive him,” Cipiti said. “People need to realize even in the brokenness there’s beauty.”
He said the documentary grew into something humanity-centered and uplifting.
“One of the biggest takeaways I hope people have is that we hold onto so many things that we don’t need to give power,” Cipiti said. “Most of us haven’t experienced tragedy to this level, but we all have ways in which we’ve been wronged. Forgiveness unlocks something in you.”
Left emotionally drained sorting through the poignant footage at the edit bay, Cipiti managed to get the film down to around an hour and a half.
“There’s so much that I wish we could’ve kept in it, but I think it’s the perfect length,” he said. “It’s right where it needs to be.”
Cipiti, who lives in Fayetteville and grew up in Cazenovia, said he hopes the Brian Ivie-directed documentary will cut through the animosity and racial strife omnipresent around the country.
“In today’s day and age, we live in such a charged society that says ‘I can’t believe this person did that’ or ‘how can you think this way,’” he said. “I don’t think that gets much done.”
Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry as well as actresses Viola Davis and Mariska Hargitay contributed to the production of the film and helped with its distribution.
The documentary will be screened at ShoppingTown Mall, Destiny USA and Movie Tavern among other theaters.
Entering the industry
At age 19, Cipiti attended the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and made some contacts. One filmmaker, mistakenly thinking Cipiti was 26, recruited him to join his crew to shoot a documentary about female entrepreneurs in Peru.
“It was the first time I realized the gift I had could benefit others,” Cipiti said.
He then dropped out of college and started working in documentary filmmaking full-time.
Now actually 26, Cipiti has conducted a couple hundred interviews over the years on various sets, some lasting many hours.
“If anything, I’ve developed in the way of trying to have conversations with people more than even asking them questions,” he said. “If you’re telling a story about somebody, they know more about it than you ever will. They’re the ones who have lived it.”
So far, Cipiti has worked in several capacities — from director to visual effects supervisor — on short projects and feature-lengths, namely last year’s “The Dating Project.”
Cipiti said he has drawn influence, in part, from documentaries such as Bart Layton’s “The Imposter” and Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line.”
“Both of those films do such a good job of using the real people to tell a story beautifully, and then they bring the filmmaking component to it through reenactment scenes and B-roll,” Cipiti said. “There’s such an attention to detail.”
Cipiti said he hopes his films open up conversation and provoke thought for theatergoers.
“Even if one person is affected by the story you’re telling, then that’s why you put in the months or years of work,” Cipiti said.
