Introduction
Death By Numbers features a harrowing account of Parkland school shooting survivor Sam Fuentes and confronting her attacker. I recently sat down with Fuentes and director Kim A. Snyder to talk about limiting the story scope, expressing true emotion, and how this awards run can feel contradictory.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Interview
Ben Miller:
My question was your approach to it as far as how the subject came across. Death by Numbers is not about the big picture of the problem in America and school shootings. It’s much more the individual story and how Samantha’s feelings were going through this process. Was that always the intention to keep it more character-based, or did the idea of going bigger and focusing on the macro ever come into account?
Kim A. Snyder:
It’s a great question. I mean, I have made several other films in the space of gun violence that have been a bit more macro. This was a story that was intimate that I felt hadn’t been told that I couldn’t let go of because Sam and I had known each other for now seven years since her shooting and coming up with this story.
I just was really taken with her words and what she had written and the opportunity to tell a new story that had to do with both her moving through trauma, but also in confronting her shooter in interweaving the ongoing trial of the shooter. So it felt completely different and new and important. And so it was more of a poetic, and from a filmmaking perspective, it was something different that we had done and something Sam was really willing to embark on in infusing it with her own writing.
Ben Miller:
And Samantha, you look at it from your perspective. You really have to trust that she’s going to be on the side of…it’s not like a situation where you have total control, but at the same time, you kind of want her to get something across that you are trying to convey to the world, correct?
Sam Fuentes:
Yeah, and I feel that that is why the collaboration is so essential to the whole filming process. Kim has expertise in dealing with victims within the gun violence space and has this consideration and sensitivity that I really respect and admire. So working with her, I never really felt that I was being violated or exploited in any capacity.
If anything, it was a really empowering process throughout because, as a writer on the project, it was different in the sense that we were really trying to piece together this theme that we were painting through the writing. I think the film is really a testament to our collaboration and the sensitivity and consideration that she has for the topic and the message at hand.
And that’s really fortunate because I know, unfortunately, this issue is very polarizing and is very sensational and we’re really trying to step away from this sort of dramatic crime trial drama-type situation and tell a story that was really individual and really intimate. So, I trusted her to do that really wholeheartedly. And so it made giving my piece of Death by Numbers to her a really easy thing to do.
Ben Miller:
It’s such an interesting show of emotion in the film. Essentially, I was really taken aback by what I was watching as far as what the world expects you to be, how they expect you to behave, and how you actually feel. And I feel like you really captured the aspect of “People expect me to be this way, show this kind of emotion, have this kind of reaction.” And you just seem true to yourself. But at the same time, still able to be in the moment and experience all your feelings. Between the two of you, did you ever feel like did you ever feel like you were trying to hide your emotions, or did you ever feel like you were holding something back there, or did you feel like it was a truly open experience the whole time?
Sam Fuentes:
It’s really complicated because we’re dealing with a very specific dynamic, right? So there’s, for me, within this personal, one-on-one style that we’re having with the interviews and the scenes in which we’re very much out of the epicenter of the trauma. That was very natural and I didn’t find any difficulty with sharing in those moments. I found the restraint was more so in the confrontation with my shooter and actually testifying was a very specific and calculated speech that I made, which is much different than those sorts of interview-style portions of the film.
And the reason I say calculated is because, I know very well that people like the person, the person who had shot me and killed a bunch of people, I know that they often seek joy and they relish in the idea that their victims suffer and that their legacy is one that will reign on and that they’ll be notorious and that they’ll have fame from this. And I know that they want anger. They want you to stoop down to that level of hatefulness and vengeance. And so I knew that my reaction couldn’t be over the top. It had to be restrained because: no, that’s exactly what he wanted.
Sam Fuentes (cont.):
And in order to reclaim my power, I had to be more restrained and a little more stoic than how I actually was feeling. Because truly in the first drafts of that speech, I was so much more angrier and frustrated. But for me, what was most important was to get the message across, which was that I knew the kind of person that he was and that was somebody who was subscribed to an ideology of hate.
That is not unique to just him and that he’s not special and to call him out and reveal that truth I think in many ways was a declaration and a reclaiming of this sort of power imbalance that I was dealing with internally. And really to uphold the legacy of those that we lost was what came to be my priority in that interaction. So of course, and that was a lot more control.
Kim A. Snyder:
For me, there’s me as a filmmaker and then there’s me as a person who’s developed true deep friendships with not only Sam among others who’ve gone through these kinds of horrors, and I’ve learned a lot about trauma. Some of the things I’ve learned is not to…that we were just talking about this the other day…Sam certainly had enough to deal with without other people in any way laying their, “Oh my God, this is so horrible.” Whether it be trying to be helpful, and so there is restraint in that sense. It was horrific.
Sam wasn’t allowed to be in the courtroom until she testified. I was there. In the beginning, we didn’t know we were going to make this film, so in the beginning, I was there as a support to some of the other people that I’d come to know, and was there as sort of part of the community, and then started to talk to Sam about this writing and how we could intertwine the two, but there was quite a lot of restraint. And yet, the boundaries of caring for Sam, and trying to be supportive at the times that were tough. Yeah, it was definitely a tightrope.
Ben Miller:
Obviously, the subject matter of this is so heavy, but at the same time you have your experience a week-and-a-half ago of sitting on Friday and being like…okay, you knew you were shortlisted, and you knew that opportunity was there. So first off, what was that day like for you guys? It’s obviously a triumphant thing, but at the same time it, you’re being celebrated for this? It’s kind of a balance there as well, right?
Kim A. Snyder:
We were just looking at photos because I was oddly enough, premiering within the same 24 hours premiering at Sundance. That like is usually like a big enough adrenaline rush to begin with. But we all decided we were gonna get up early to Zoom with all of our team executive producers who’d done with this. And they happen to be a lot of amazing women. And we were just like all on a Zoom. Some of us were in the room together at Sundance and Sam was on a Zoom in New York.
And it was just like an unbelievable moment of emotion and tears and joy and being overwhelmed and then what starts to creep in, at least for me, was this idea of you never wanted to have to make this movie. As the, as the Oscars approach more and more of this strange, weird feeling of not feeling comfortable in some ways with mixing the idea of even the word or award with the tragedy. So very different feelings about Sam being a victim, but we’ve talked about them. And that part, there’s a certain sharing of that confluence of feelings.
Sam Fuentes:
It’s very contradictory.
Ben Miller:
Yeah. You get to dress up and go to an award show but for this? There’s the push/pull of it. Yes, the celebration of the filmmaking, the artistry and you can kind of point it…well it’s your own artistry yourself. Through this you’re like, well, it’s a celebration of it all. I’m sure there are certain ways you can frame it where you kind of look down on the actual award, but at the same time you can’t not be happy about it
Kim A. Snyder:
I think both of us understand that the recognition is an opportunity and a platform to talk to the world about something that our country, at least, sitting here in London, it’s different in a good way. But we’ve become so numb and inured because it happens so on a daily basis that we see it as an opportunity to remind people through Sam’s powerful singular voice about youth trauma. And we have an opportunity to amplify that, and we know that having a nomination, if it helps to get this out, especially for short films, because short documentaries don’t always have that kind of an amplifier.
So I think that’s what’s keeping us… it’s bigger than us. And it’s important…the power of documentary and storytelling around impact is something that I believe strongly in. So I think you have to sort of get over that and say, this is that thing that we wanted to happen with it
Ben Miller:
You’re filmmaking history and making this film in the previous films you’ve done have lent itself to continue to talk about this topic over and over again. Because Like you said you had built the trust. You’re there as a support system. I imagine despite not being directly involved in this it was something that the people around you probably bring you into this kind of bubble of survivorship because of how intrinsically linked they feel.
Kim A. Snyder:
Absolutely. I mean, there’s this terrible kind of phrase of the club. Nobody wants to belong to it. I know it from Newtown. I know it from Parkland. And I feel this is a family of sorts. The activism piece of it, you go places over the years, you see some of the same faces and they’re from different cities and, as we both always point out, you know, mass shootings are only maybe 2% of gun violence in America. The vast majority are…60% are suicides and the rest are just violence in cities across America. You get to know this is a larger fellowship, a horrible but committed one that is not going to relent.
Ben Miller:
The film is not open-ended necessarily, but at the same time, as soon as I was done I was like, “Man Samantha, What do you have next?” So now this is kind of my opportunity. It’s my opportunity to have the little mini-sequel of it. What are you looking for left in your life? You have so much so much potential and obviously so much artistry. Is there something along those lines that you’re looking to do now that you have the film to look at and go, “Oh, man! This is kind of the springboard to do things”
Sam Fuentes:
I’ve been a writer my whole life, really. I don’t think I felt legitimized in that. I sort of had the mentality of, getting a real job. Put your passions aside and sort of that whole thing. I think the project has been a very empowering one in that sense of just in terms of the way that I view myself as a writer now. I’d like to write stories that have nothing to do with me.
I’m very interested in narrative screenwriting, and I’m very interested in film as a platform to tell larger and important stories of really…just human spirit and resilience has always just been something I’m fascinated about. And even Death by Numbers, this shooting happened in my Holocaust Studies class of all ones, just terrible irony there. And I think this is an opportunity to just tell more stories and connect with people and really grow as an artist.
Death by Numbers had its world premiere at the 32nd Hamptons International Film Festival on October 5, 2024. In December 2024, it was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Short Film at the 97th Academy Awards.
