"St. Patrick's Four" documentary

Arts feature:
profiling "The Trial of the St. Patrick's Four" by Adolfo Doring and Amanda Zackem
The Ithaca Journal
July 25, 2007
503 words

"St. Patrick's Four documentary at Cinemapolis tonight"

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St. Patrick's Four documentary at Cinemapolis tonight
By Mark Tedeschi
Special to the Journal

Most of us in Central New York are fairly familiar with the story: On March 17, 2003, four Ithaca Catholic Worker members now known as “The Saint Patrick's Four” entered a military recruitment center in Lansing.

They poured vials of their blood on the walls and on an American flag, knelt, and read a prepared statement and letters from Iraqis asking Americans to use civil disobedience to protest the invasion of Iraq. They were tried in Ithaca, where the judge declared a mistrial due to a hung jury, and then re-tried in Binghamton on federal charges — including conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States.

There's another story that most of us don't know: Two years later, Ithaca College graduate Amanda Zackem, now 26, met filmmaker Adolfo Doring, now 45, in Manhattan while both were working on a film project about gentrification. Shortly after Doring's passion for documenting the truth on celluloid became a shared one, they dedicated themselves to creating a film reminding people that, in Doring's words, “Democracy is not a free ride.” That film, screening at Cinemapolis at 7:15 tonight, is called “The Trial of the St. Patrick's Four.”

Neither Doring nor Zackem personally knew any of “The Four” (Daniel Burns, Teresa Grady, Clare Grady and Peter DeMott) until a friend told Doring about the second trial; that Zackem went to school in Ithaca was purely a coincidence.

Each of the Saint Patrick's Four faced a possible six years in prison and a $250,000 fine; moreover, the verdict “could have set a legal precedent, a choke hold on protests across the country,” Doring said.

Their film follows the second trial as it develops, starting when Doring and Zackem got involved. Cameras weren't allowed in the courtroom, although they did attend the proceedings every day amidst a packed audience. Then, every evening, they would interview the four defendants, as well as protestors outside the courthouse both for and against an acquittal. The documentary also contains footage of the Iraq war and interviews with political activists Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

“The film shows reality,” Zackem said. “A documentary is about truth ... most people never get to see a trial like this — they only get to hear about it.”

The filmmakers interviewed people with as many opinions as they could. Though the filmmakers may have sympathized with the protestors' situation, their goal was for the film to remain objective.

The four protestors and their families have a history of political activism. Burns' father, John Burns, was mayor of Binghamton for many years. The Grady sisters' father, John Peter Grady, was part of the Camden 28, a group of Vietnam protestors who were acquitted of breaking into a building to destroy draft records.

“They believe in what they do, their reasons, and the constitutionality of all of it,” Doring said. “They're very resolute.”

DeMott, Burns and the Grady sisters were convicted on misdemeanor charges of trespassing and damaging government property. They all served time in prison for the convictions.