The Witness
53rd New York Film Festival
September 25 - October 11, 2015
James Solomon’s quiet, concentrated, devastating film follows the efforts of Kitty Genovese’s brother Bill to track down the people who knew her and loved her, to disentangle the actual events of her murder from urban myth, and to recover the presence of his beloved sister.
On March 13, 1964, in Kew Gardens, Queens, Kitty Genovese was stabbed, raped, robbed, and left to die by a man named Winston Moseley. On March 27, at the urging of Metro editor A.M. Rosenthal, The New York Times published an investigative report asserting that 38 eyewitnesses saw the attack and retreated to their apartments, and the case quickly became a symbol of urban apathy. Genovese’s family lost her twice: once to a murderer and once more to legend, a legend that would be questioned, dismantled, and discredited 40 years later in the very paper that had created it. James Solomon’s quiet, concentrated, and devastating film closely follows the efforts of Genovese’s brother Bill, 16 at the time of Kitty’s death, to track down the people who knew her, loved her, and tried to help her, to arrange a possible meeting with her killer, and to recover the presence of his beloved sister.
As deeply moving as it is enlightening.
—Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
Stunning.
—Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
A multi-layered nonfiction work about myth, self-deception and reclaiming life from death.
—Nick Schager, Variety
Essential viewing.
—Chris Barsanti, Film Journal International
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