The documentary “4000 Days” by Daniel E. Catullo II was the Audience Award Winner for documentaries at the 57th Nashville Film Festival. The 110 minute film, which had its Southwest Premiere in Nashville, chronicled the 17-year-fight by parents  Julie and Gary DeVercelly to seek reform of the Greek system, whose hazing of their 17-year-old son Gary DeVercelly, Jr,, led to his death from hazing during his freshman year.

THE FAMILIES PROFILED

The film focuses on three families and shows the unrelenting effort put forth by the DeVercellys and others to bring something good out of the tragic and senseless death of their son. To quote Julie DeVercelly, “We have to make some good come out of the tragedy.”

Two other families who joined in the struggle are highlighted, the families of Adam Oakes (Oct. 6, 2001-Feb. 27, 2021) and Nolan Burch. The film is a terrific look at true dedication and perseverance.Gary DeVercelly is the chief spokesperson and the voice of reason articulating what the rest of us can see  for ourselves: the Greek system is in the wrong and it needs to change.

Many other families affected by the deaths of fraternity members who died during hazing rituals join the campaign as it drags on seemingly forever. It is difficult to understand why there is such resistance to saving the lives of young people by protecting them from the demands of a hazing system that is perilously out-of-touch with reality.

FAMOUS NAMES

The DeVercelly family executive produced the film, as did famous name Paris Hilton. The other famous names and faces that float through the documentary are Congressmen and women, some of whom seem sympathetic and all of whom seem trapped in a system that appears particularly ineffectual when it drags on for decades and more and more young lives are lost.

Among the famous legislative cameos by our elected representatives  are those by Amy Klubachar (D, MN), who seems a voice of sanity crying in the wilderness, and Ted Cruz (R, TX), who does not. Dick Durbin is seen drifting by, as is the now deceased Lindsay Graham

ERIC & LINDA OAKES

The Oakes family mourn the death of their only child to such an extent that Linda literally cannot appear onscreen even to hold up a picture of her murdered son. It is very late in the documentary that we learn that young Eric was targeted for especially unkind and brutal treatment because he was overweight, with epiphets of “Fatty” and particularly cruel and unusual hazing treatment.  It is clear that her son’s death has literally destroyed Linda Oakes, which is not to minimize the grief and rage of the other grieving mothers. It is just that Linda literally cannot stop crying in every scene and the couple present as a throbbing open would of grief that cannot be assuaged.

The family of Nolan Burch (1996-2014), T.J. and Kim Burch, also are focused on. They help drive home the message, over and over, that these hazings are senseless tragedies that proper supervision by the national fraternity/sorority system could have averted with appropriate supervision and more than a slap-on-the-wrist approach to the misdeeds ongoing nationwide.

WHY?

An explanation of the way money paid by pledges went to the national organizations and was used by them as a sort of  gigantic money-making scheme to insure against the inevitable deaths that could and would occur with such lax enforcement and supervision.

It is pointed out that influential alums of the various fraternal bodies were in some ways culpable, also.  A Who’s Who of Famous Fraternity Members scrolls by and the implication is that the long-running attempts to stop hazing abuse were often sidelined in favor of the sweep-it-under-the-rug school of dealing with unpleasant reality.

Daniel E.Catullo II, who directed and is founder of 10 Lives Films has fashioned a powerful, intense film that played at Tribeca and has excellent sound design from Dominic Bartolini, with Richard Patrick’s original compositions also adding immeasurably. Cinematographer Michael Candolori and Editor Russell Greene have created a truly impressive film, which led, quite naturally, into the closing film of the Nashville Film Festival, for me, which was “Being Heumann,” which also showed the snail’s pace at which our legislative bodies work.