One Minute to Nine is the story of a family crushed in the tyrannical grip of an abusive patriarch, and what happens when the saying "enough is enough" is a monumental understatement. Director Tommy Davis met the Maldonado family a couple of days before Wendy, the mother of four boys, was to be incarcerated on the charge of murder. Using hand-shot chronicles and aging home videos, Davis pieces together the last moments of freedom for a family who has already lead a long life of imprisonment. We had the chance recently to pick Davis' brain about courage, exploitation and a little bit of old fashioned luck.

Was your original intent to make a film about domestic violence?

My original plan was to make a short lyrical film about having a finite amount of time in which to say goodbye to people you love.

Did you automatically think of profiling someone who was going to prison, or were there other stories that you were interested in exploring?

Well there was the obvious one. Everyone was like, oh, find someone who is going to die. I didn't want to go do that. That is a lot to bear, wondering if they really want that or if I really want that. I have friends who have gone to prison or friends of family members who have gone to prison, so I knew the dynamic somewhat, and I knew that it would be a pretty interesting story. It didn't have to be this story. The truth is anyone's story who has to say goodbye to family and go to jail for 5, 10, 20 years would be fascinating and intense. If I was able to get in there and film it in an intimate way, I really thought that would work as a movie.

But why is that an important story to tell? Is there some sort of lesson you were trying to get across?

No, I just thought it was interesting. There was no agenda. I just wanted to try to tell the story in a different way because so many documentaries that are made are trying to teach you a lesson and I'm just not that interested in that.

You could have made the film incredibly political, and the fact that you didn't really makes it unique. Why did you decide to just let the family tell their story as opposed to openly indicting the judicial system and the law enforcement system?

I don't think that I would have done a good job making a film like that, but then also I think it's obvious. I think that just by telling this story you are indicting the system. You go to different countries and you show the film and that is what they take it as, that this film is an indictment of the US Justice system, which is not how I look at it. I think it's just about this person's last five days. Someone else thought that it was about the election.

Well, everything is about the election.

Everyone has their own take on it, but I'm just not that good with the fact finding, you know, presenting the interviews with all these different people. It wouldn't have been very interesting because I didn't know how to do it. I think it is still pretty damning of the courts up there, but the error is so blatant, how could the film not be damning?

I understand that, after your original subject fell through, you googled the words "out on bond" and "prison" and the first name that came up was Wendy Maldonado, the subject of One Minute to Nine. When you contacted her, was she immediately open to the project or was there hesitation?

We met for dinner and she told me she had read about Mojados [Tommy's first documentary about Mexican immigrants crossing the border]. That had given her some sort of faith that I wasn’t out to manipulate the situation. From there we just kind of made sure we understood that I wasn’t out to exploit her and that I would try to limit my impact as much as possible. I met her sons and after we hit if off, she was okay with everything.

How did you walk that fine line of making it interesting but not making it exploitative. I mean, the story is sensational...

Like Court T.V.

Right, I think a lot of the people will see the film for with morbid curiosity for the subject matter, but were there times when you felt yourself pulling back from that?

There is all sorts of stuff that we didn't put in. Anything that was going to effect the children in a bad way was gone. We wouldn't even write the dialogue into the logs. Wendy is the most gracious person ever and I love her, but she agreed to do the film, so it was kind of fair game for her, but the kids don't have that much say, so anything that I thought would effect them I took it out.

You had spent six months searching for that original subject, so how did you know that Wendy's story would work in such a cramped time frame (only have five days to shoot before she would be incarcerated)?

Luck.

Has the family, or Wendy herself seen the film, and if so, what was their reaction?

Wendy saw the film. At first she had problems with certain parts but after a day or so, she let me know that she really liked it. The family has also seen the film and they’ve indicated that they like it. Tyler, Wendy´s son, will be at SXSW to answer questions about the film too.

Which specific parts of the film did Wendy have trouble with?

The crime itself. Everyone was trying to protect each other, so the stories were changing. Everyone was taking the blame and all Wendy wanted to do was protect all of the people around her.

What about Aaron's family (Wendy's husband)? Did they say anything or have any reaction to the film being made?

They didn't want to be interviewed. One of the family members called me, but then never called me back after I returned the call. There was a screening in their home town of Grant Pass, Oregon and it has shown some other places as well, so I imagine that someone will show up eventually, but as far as I know they have not seen the film.

In 2004, Mojados: Through the Night won the audience award at SXSW. How do you expect audiences to react to One Minute to Nine?

Internationally people and press have embraced the film, but I am not sure how a US audience will respond.

Why do you think it would be different?

I think they are used to something else, not that this is totally different, but I wasn't sure if people would want more information about everything. I feel like people want to know everything before going in, but I wanted to make people dig for it and reveal the entire story more slowly. I think it asks a bit more of the audience. That kinda sounds pretentious.

I think it is okay to consider a film challenging.

Yeah, I didn't want it to be easy.

What parallels, if any, do you draw between the situations that you documented in Mojados and in OMtN?

Totally different I think. If there is some similarity it’s not yet clear to me.

Well, what I see is that they are both situations of desperation and people trying to do what is best for their family and make a life for their family that is different from what they have now. Is that a topic that is close to your heart, or are you just broadly interested in any good character story?

Well, the story is what interested me, in both ways. I don't know, now you're making me think. Both are about sacrifice, but that wasn't intentional. I didn't think that I would come away with something harrowing or a courageous person. In the same way, with Mojados, I thought I would find some thugs, and I would have been fine with that. Both times I didn't intend to have actually good people, but perhaps the best parts of people come out in these types of situations. I don't know, I'm just lucky. But I am not trying to make social documentaries.

It is incredible that you go into it without any sort of agenda, because it seems that a lot of documentary film making is geared towards, "I want..."

...you to believe what I believe.

Exactly, I want to show you this story and I want you to walk away thinking "this".

And no one likes that. Well, no, a lot of people like that and they all have the same queue on Netflix. I don't know. In the US there are people making some great documentaries and then there are people who are really talented and are making the same documentary over and over again just about a different subject. Why not do something a little different. Around the world there are people making really interesting documentaries about certain issues, but they don't necessarily have to talk about the issue itself. You can dance around it and make a beautiful film. I hope that has started to change here. There was Zoo last year, which I haven't seen, and everyone has told me that I am crazy because it is one of the most beautiful films to come out recently. But, it's waiting for me at home during the week, so i am excited.

Well, lets not talk about the filmmakers that you don't like. Who are those filmmakers who you think are doing beautiful work who you look up to?

Victor Erice is hands down the best out there and what I am trying to get close to. He's only made a couple of features, The Dream of Light and The Spirit of the Beehive; I saw those after I made the first cut of Mojados. At that point it didn't have any narration, which is how I wanted it, but then people fell asleep in the screening, so I narrated it to death thinking that would be the answer, but I made a mistake. Then you see something Victor does and I'm like, shit, that's what I'm trying to get close to. If I can get within a mile of that I would be on the right path. He's the best.

You mentioned the narration in Mojados, but there was no voice-over in One Minute to Nine at all. You went to two very different extremes there.

Yeah, but when I originally made Mojados it didn't have a voice-over either. There was no explanation of anything and people fell asleep. I was 23 or 24 and very scared so I thought I would just add narration. Then it came time for it to go out to theaters and I wanted to send out the original, but I thought I would be cheating the people who came to saw it and the theater owners who bought it, but the version without narration may be coming out on DVD.

One of the thing that truly makes OMtN work without the voice-over is the editing. How did you get hooked up with Luis de Leon?

We went to college together. I knew right away that Luis was a fantastic editor, so the plan was for me to shoot everything and bring it home, script it out and then begin editing the dialogue. I left him alone for two weeks and he came back with a three hour cut and from there we would just keep messing with it to make it smooth. he did a really fantastic job of bringing in the home videos.

Were you aware of the existence of the home videos before you began shooting?

No. While I was filming Wendy’s sons were showing me the short films they had made. As they were rummaging through the videos I saw glimpses of home movies and that’s when I realized there was more to the story.

At what point in the editing process did you get those?

The box of videos arrived the first day that Luis came out to L.A. to begin editing. So we sat there for two days watching the world cup and all of these home videos. We had to watch something to balance it all out..

How has making this film changed you? I have no doubt that crossing the border with migrant workers in Mojados was a harrowing, eye opening experience, but what didOMtN teach you?

I have learned a great deal about courage from Wendy and her sons.

One Minute to Nine will has one more screening as part of the SXSW Film Festival. More info at the Film Threat / B-Side SXSW Guide.