The 'Unseen' Victims Of Cleveland Serial Killer Anthony Sowell

By David C. Barnett
Senior Arts Reporter for WCPN

Convicted Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell was back in court today to appeal his 2011 death sentence for the murders of 11 women over a three-year period. A new documentary about those crimes, called “Unseen”, had its debut at the Cleveland International Film Festival, this past weekend. It tells the stories of Sowell’s victims. From the Here & Now Contributors Network, David C. Barnett of WCPN takes a closer look at the lives of a vulnerable population...

UNSEEN Discussed

PBS | Sound of Ideas

On PBS’s Sound of Ideas, hosts discuss the strong reaction to UNSEEN at the Cleveland International Film Festival...

Cleveland International Film Festival 2016: 'Unseen' is a moving, brutal tale of loss and survival

By Andrea Simakis
The Plain Dealer

Ironically, the most memorable moments in "Unseen," a documentary about the Anthony Sowell killings, aren't the lurid details of his unspeakable crimes. In 2009, police uncovered 11 bodies in and around Sowell's property at 12205 Imperial Ave. in Cleveland's Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

It's the stuff of horror movies to be sure. But that doesn't compare to the riveting, direct testimony of women who made it out alive - among them Vanessa Gay, who staggered, limping and bloody, out onto Imperial Avenue one Sunday morning...

In new documentary, victims and survivors of serial killer Anthony Sowell are no longer ‘unseen’: Cleveland International Film Festival, 2016

By Andrea Simakis
The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio - In the documentary "Unseen," directed by Laura Paglin, the title emerges from wisps of smoke - no doubt, we are to imagine, from a crack pipe.

Crack cocaine, after all, was the drug that swept through the Mount Pleasant neighborhood where serial killer and rapist Anthony Sowell hunted for his victims, laying waste to whole families.

"It was like Hurricane Katrina," says Vanessa Gay to Paglin's camera. She's one of the few women who met the ex-Marine and lived.

"It came though and ravaged my whole life."

As Gay tells it, it was her addiction to that drug that brought her to Sowell's door at 12205 Imperial Ave., a bland white duplex that no one realized was the source of the sickening stench that dominated the area for years, baffling health inspectors and residents alike...

'Facing Forward: A Student's Story'; Laura Paglin's vital documentary gets a new life on WVIZ/PBS

By Andrea Simakis
The Plain Dealer

If you didn't catch Laura Paglin's standout documentary "Facing Forward" when it premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival in 2011, it's no wonder you're depressed. But thanks to a co-production of WVIZ/PBS and Creative Filmmakers Association, you've got another shot.

A new and updated version of the film is airing in Cleveland and on other PBS stations throughout the country in May...

Sound of Ideas: Guest “Tyree Stewart” from Facing Forward

PBS | Sound of Ideas

A new milestone in education was touted last week: 80 percent of students nationwide graduate high school. But that still means 1 in every 5 students does not get a high school diploma. WVIZ PBS brings you the story of Tyree Stewart, a drop out who is now working on a college degree. And we'll learn what safety nets are in place for students who may be at risk of dropping out or getting expelled...

Cleveland school documentary goes nationwide

By Carlo Wolff | Staff Reporter
Cleveland Jewish News

“Facing Forward: A Student’s Story,” Laura Paglin’s documentary about Cleveland inner-city kid Tyree Stewart’s experience with the innovative Entrepreneurship Preparatory School, is a tale of struggle, aspiration and eventual triumph...

UNAFF Brings Films to Palo Alto Classrooms

By Rachel Stern | Patch Staff
Palo Alto Patch

United Nations Association Film Festival brings documentaries such as Facing Forward to Palo Alto high schools.

It's a rigorous and structured academic environment. The middle schoolers are entitled to only two bathroom breaks in their 10 hour day, have to be in class at 7 am every morning, and must don the same plaid uniforms throughout the non-stop academic year...

Facing Forward

By Joe Shearer
The Film Yap

As an education documentary, “Facing Forward” is a solid, engaging look at an oddity in the American educational system.

The E Prep school is a super-strict inner-city prep school in Cleveland, which takes drastic steps to protect students. Talking out of turn? Detention. Talking at lunchtime? Detention. Holding your books in the wrong hand? Detention, or you at least get yelled at...

'Facing Forward' traces the dramatic journey of one child in a Cleveland charter school

By Andrea Simakis
The Plain Dealer

If you think you’ve seen everything you need to know about the crisis in urban education after watching “Waiting for Superman,” think again. Director Laura Paglin spent three years inside Entrepreneurship Preparatory School, a charter school on Cleveland’s East Side that boasts test scores that are among the highest in the state. Smartly, Paglin focuses her lens on one student, seventh-grader Tyree Stewart, a charmer who arrives at E Prep barely able to read but with dreams of becoming a “billionaire scientist”...