Laura Paglin films in the news...
By Molly Laich
Missoula Independent
In 2009, serial killer Anthony Edward Sowell was finally arrested on rape, kidnapping and murder charges after 11 unidentified bodies were found in his decrepit home in Cleveland's Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Rather than dwelling on Sowell, Laura Paglin's film instead focuses on interviews with his victims, all of them poor, black women who were lured in with promises of drugs...
By Rachel Montpelier
Women and Hollywood
Based out of Cleveland, Ohio, Laura Paglin is a producer and director who has made a name for herself by bringing the stories of marginalized communities to a worldwide audience. Paglin’s prior work includes “The Nightowls of Coventry,” “Shadow of the Swan: A Composer’s Story,” “No Umbrella: Election Day in the City,” “Facing Forward,” and “Facing Forward: A Student’s Story.” “No Umbrella” premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by HBO Documentary Films, while “Facing Forward: A Student’s Story” was nationally broadcast on PBS.
“Unseen” will premiere at the 2016 DOC NYC film festival on November 11…
By Seth Ferranti, Contributor
Huffington Post
For two years numerous women went missing in Cleveland’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. But nobody really cared because these woman were junkies and prostitutes and crack heads, marginalized women in poverty-stricken areas where people tended to keep to themselves. Finally a reported rape leads police to a house of horrors...
By Henry Stewart
Brooklyn Magazine
Excerpt: …Unseen inspires the opposite emotion. (Not even German has the word.) If The Promise exposes problems in Virginia’s justice system, Unseen (Nov. 11, 9:45pm, Cinepolis Chelsea) tears Cleveland’s apart...
By Marina Zogbi
Art for Progress
Documentary lovers, take note! The seventh edition of DOC NYC, America’s largest nonfiction film festival, begins this week, with screenings at Manhattan’s IFC Center, SVA Theatre and Cinepolis Chelsea. The 2016 festival, which runs from Thursday, Nov. 10, to Thursday, Nov. 17, boasts over 250 films and events overall, including 110 feature-length documentaries. Included are 18 world premieres and 19 U.S. premieres, with more than 300 filmmakers and special guests on hand to present and discuss their films…
By Steve Kopian
UNSEEN FILMS
Anthony Sowell was convicted of the rape of Melvette Sockwell in 1989 and went to jail for 15 years. In 2009 the bodies of 11 people were discovered in and around his home in the Cleveland neighborhood of Mt Pleasant. The women had disappeared over a three year period, however the police never investigated the cases of the missing women until the bodies turned up...
By Carlo Wolff | Staff Reporter
Cleveland Jewish News
Cleveland Heights filmmaker Laura Paglin goes deep and disturbing in “Unseen,” her powerful documentary about Anthony Sowell. Interweaving interviews with survivors of the Mount Pleasant killer and archival and contemporary footage, she paints a harrowing picture of a Cleveland neighborhood that poverty has rotted to the core...
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...
PBS | Sound of Ideas
On PBS’s Sound of Ideas, hosts discuss the strong reaction to UNSEEN at the Cleveland International Film Festival...
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...