Rival Jamal Movie Tries to Compete With Hill

(from Philly.com)
As the premiere nears of Tigre Hill 's "The Barrel of a Gun," about the controversy surrounding the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and his killer, Mumia Abu-Jamal, rival filmmakers are seeking funds to complete "Mumia 101."
Hill has said that his movie contains new insights suggesting that Abu-Jamal's murder of Faulkner was premeditated. The Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal calls Hill's film "a slick work of propaganda posing as documentary, thin on facts and thick with emotional manipulation."

The group is hitting up supporters to raise $100,000 to "hire a film editor full-time for two months of final editing" on "Mumia 101," which they had hoped to have completed by the Sept. 21 premiere of "The Barrel of a Gun" at the Merriam Theater. (Tickets are on sale at kimmelcenter.org.)

The fundraiser letter says that "Mumia 101" filmmakers Kouross Esmaeli and Johanna Fernández, neither of whom returned a request for comment yesterday, give both sides time to talk, and says that their film "let facts, not emotionalism point to the police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that led to Mumia's 1982 conviction."

Meanwhile, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 endorsed Hill's film yesterday and will provide security for the premiere.

Hill's last film was "Shame of a City," about Sam Katz's failed 2004 mayoral campaign