Adam Trunell: On Community in Skid Row

Adam Trunell⁠ is an LA-based filmmaker. In the past, Adam's been a writer, producer, and editor, depending on the job. Eventually, by necessity, he had to do all those things at once, including camera. That, plus the need to make anything into something, is where you end up with "filmmaker." In this conversation we focus on Adam's feature documentary The Row that he shot and produced on his own in Skid Row, Los Angeles during Covid-19. We chat about unraveling typical expectations of community and the nonprofit harm reduction organization called ⁠The Sidewalk Project⁠. Below is Adam's written bio for this project:

"The first time I heard someone cry on the streets of Skid Row, I was stunned, realizing it was only the first time.

The sound should be an anthem in a place like this, its chorus rising every night with the moon. Instead it sang unremarkably among the silent, sleeping bodies curled on the sidewalk—impossible in repose—falling like a whisper on deaf ears.  

That was my first year in Skid Row; eight since and I know better. Tears come at the breaking point, and if you’re already here, you’re past broke. By the here and now, you found a way to deal and people to deal with. 

We co-exist in Skid Row, home of the eccentric, troubled, corrupted, enlightened, exemplary, and unhinged. It cuts a complicated beauty whose diversity is unknown in any modern city, anywhere. I keep friends who have roofs and walls and friends without; friends with addiction disorders and friends without; friends who make victims and those who’d been one. 

None of us got the same story; all of us share the same space."

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