1946, lower Alabama. On a night in October, white Klansman and shopowner S.E. Branch guns down black Bill Spann inside the market of the neighborhood in which they both lived. Spann spends two days in a segregated black hospital before succumbing to his wounds. In the court proceedings, Branch’s claim of self-defense leads to a charge of first-degree murder, but with no trial or jail time. Years pass, until Branch’s great-grandson, the filmmaker himself, returns to the site of the murder to reflect on a generation’s worth of aftermath that followed the murder itself.
Part documentary, part murder-mystery, Did You Wonder Who Fired The Gun? is also the story of interconnected histories and of director Travis Wilkerson’s coming to terms with his own. A mesmerizing reflection on America’s past and present, Wilkerson presents the details of Spann’s murder with an honest gaze, his eye firmly fixed on unearthing the truth.
Director Biography
Travis Wilkerson was born in Colorado in 1969. Wilkerson has described his work as a combination of politics and artistry in keeping with the traditions of “third cinema” and cites Cuban film propagandist Santiago Alvarez as an influence. He has taught filmmaking nationally, including at Vassar College and CalArts.
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