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Procedure 769
Jaap van Hoewijk | The Netherlands | 1995 | 85 min. | documentary

In April of 1992, for the 1978 abduction and slaying of two teenage boys, Robert Alton Harris became the first man in 25 years to be executed in California. Forty-nine people witnessed every detail of his death from the viewing gallery in the gas chamber at the San Quentin Prison. Here, we experience the recollections of 11 witnesses. Like Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Rashomon, the same event takes on radically different perspectives depending on the emotions which color the memories of each of the participants. Mixing archival news footage with the interviews, and underscoring both with a voice-over intoning the actual Procedure 769 protocol, filmmaker van Hoewijk has, in his first feature film, provided a memorable analysis of the passion that continues to rage around the death penalty.

DIRECTED BY: Jaap van Hoewijk
SCREENPLAY: Jaap van Hoewijk, Rikkert Boonstra
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Peter Brugman
PRINCIPAL CAST: Bill Kolender, Sharron Mankins, Wade Douglas, Randall Harris, Craig Haney, Linda Herring, Michael Kroll, Daniel Vasquez, Leon Harris, Richard Beswick, Steve Baker

Shown at the 1996 Human Rights Watch Festival. Distributed by Films Transit Inc., Dominique Riel, 402 est, rue Notre-Dame, Montreal (Quebec), Canada, H2Y 1C8, Tel: (514) 844-3358 Fax: (514) 844-7298.

Jaap van Hoewijk
Director Jaap van Hoewijk was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1963. After graduating from Holland's Academy of Fine Arts, St. Joost, in 1990, he worked as an assistant director for two years. Procedure 769 (1995) is his first feature.

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