The Cannabist covers Colorado’s marijuana industry from a legal and cultural perspective for the Denver Post. Mitch Dickman filmed the staff as they did their reporting and put it together into a documentary. The film will be shown as part of the Aspen Film Festival this weekend. The film brings a local element to the festival that is critical to help keep the festival going.
Colorado is the pioneer in the retail marijuana industry. When recreational marijuana became legally available two years ago, the nation turned its eyes on the Centennial state. National media focused its gaze. But local news organizations had to shift their focus as well.
Ricardo Baca was recruited to be the first editor of The Cannabist in 2013. The page has been a huge success. Whoopi Goldberg and Snoop Dogg have both made appearances on the site. But what happens when the people doing the reporting have the cameras and questions turned toward them?
Baca says it was an odd experience to be on the other end of journalistic questioning.
“Oh yeah, that’s super weird," says Baca. "I’ve been a journalist for 20 years now. I’m not usually the one being interviewed. Suddenly you have these people around you and they want to interview you regularly - that was a trip.”
Ricardo says there was no way that he could change the way he did his job even though he had cameras in his space all of the time. It was different for him to have a full production crew sitting around his desk all day.
“You’re in your office. Your office is normally a safe place. Now it’s a safe place with a camera crew there. They’re making a documentary about what your newsroom is doing. “
Mitch Dickman is a Colorado resident and the director of the film. He says that although he was someone who would be affected by what was happening in the documentary, he put it all aside to be objective in his filmmaking.
“I try to balance bringing a style and vision, without being obtrusive with my voice or my personal opinions or my perspective on things," says Dickman. "By focusing on the journalist, we were more concerned with how this new era was affecting them, than how it might affect me.”
Now that the film is done, Mitch can sit back and watch the effects of this new industry and the reporting being done about it. He gets to witness first-hand the changes that will take place as a resident of Colorado.
When programming a film festival, it takes a lot of time and consideration to curate films that will be relevant to your audience. John Thew, the executive director of Aspen Film, says it is always important to pick movies that will resonate with the audience that you’ll draw to your event.
“It’s an important film for us to be programming this year given all that’s going on in Colorado with the legalization of marijuana,” says Thew.
It’s a goal of the festival to make sure that their audience can relate to what they’re seeing on the screen.
“It’s extremely important," says Thew. "We are a community based festival, and audience based festival. Programming films that are relevant to what’s going on here in the Valley or in the state of Colorado is extremely important for Aspen Film.”
Mitch says working on a film so close to home makes it easier to focus on the story. He doesn’t have to worry about the logistics of travel and lodging.
“I have a 4-year-old and a wife. I definitely like to stay home as much as possible. When you can go home and sleep in your own bed and tell a story that has appeal outside of your state, it’s kind of the perfect balance. I know that the next project probably won’t be as convenient.”
Rolling Papers will be shown on Saturday in Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen with a panel discussion with the makers of the film.
