Oxford News

Filmmakers Tami Yeager and Preetmohan Singh came to Miami University for a showing of their documentary "A Dream in Doubt" on Monday, April 14.

The film follows a Sikh family from Arizona after one of their family members, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was the victim of America's first post-9/11 hate crime. Four days after 9/11, Sodhi was killed while working at the gas station he owned.

"It's about the American dream in a post 9/11 world and what happens to an American when they look like the enemy,"' Preetmohan Singh said.

Filming began in 2003 and wrapped in 2007.

"We began filming when the trial of Balbir's murder began," Singh said. "Tami spent a lot of time with the family and said it was really easy to get to know them because they had been in the local media a lot because of the death."

Yeager and Singh applied for funding from PBS upon making the documentary.

"PBS has such a broad reach, especially with the Independent Lens program, we thought it was a good idea," Singh said. "This way we could reach 100,000 people in one showing, and it could have a shelf life."

Since finishing the film, the producers have been traveling the country previewing the documentary. They began with film festivals in places such as San Francisco, New York, Alabama and Los Angeles. Now they are visiting universities.

"We have done screenings at Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, George Mason, Stanford and Harvard," Singh said. "Each time we visit some place new, more people ask us to come to their school."

The filmmakers said they hope to take the film to an even higher educational level.

"After getting through airing, our main focus will be distributing the DVD and the educational program," Singh said. "We want educators to have access to it so we are making discussion guides and lesson plans about the film."

Upon visiting colleges, Yeager and Singh also conduct discussions with students and faculty after the viewing.

"A lot of young college students were in grade school during 9/11 and are surprised to hear about the revenge crimes for the first time and feel called to action and want to help," Singh said. "We really stress for them to act locally, just creating a support group to look out for each other or things like food, film and music can build bridges in communities."

Screenings of the film at universities will continue into the fall.

"We want to keep having these conversations about 'What does it mean to be an American?' " Singh said. "Film is such a powerful medium; it can provide an easy window into a culture you know nothing about."

The film airs on the PBS series Independent Lens at 10 p.m. May 20.

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