The cinetrix does have a lot to share about this year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, but right now the only film she can think about is Macky Alston's The Killer Within. It's astonishing and, today, painfully prescient.
An esteemed University of Arizona psych prof in his 70s reveals, first to his family, then to his friends, colleagues, employers, and students that when he was a Swarthmore undergraduate in 1955, he murdered a fellow student. He was institutionalized for several years, found not guilty by reason of insanity, and released.
Until a few years ago, only his wife knew his story.
She and their two daughters embark on this revelatory journey with him, but what still haunts me is his unsettling lack of affect all these decades after the--you knew this was coming--day he set off with several firearms and the premeditated plan to murder everyone in his dormitory.
The Killer Within screened only yesterday at the Philadelphia International Film Festival. It's scheduled on April 21 and 26 at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema as part of the Atlanta International Film Festival, and on April 26 and 29 at the Somerville Theatre as part of the Independent Film Festival of Boston. See it if you can.
If you are an educator, Diana Kurnit of distributor Discovery Films told me on Saturday that she and Alston were hoping to put together a tour of school campuses. If you're interested in learning how your institution can bring this film to campus, you can contact her here.
Pray for the Hokies.