‘Katrina Babies’ Tribeca 2022 Review – An Emotional Story of Tragedy, Family, and Resilience

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept through the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas, and left devastation and trauma in its wake. Over a thousand lives were lost, and it left a mark of the city that can still be felt almost two decades later.

Director of Katrina Babies, Edward Buckles Jr, was a pre-teen when the hurricane hit his home and changed his life forever. A project he began in 2015, Buckles opens up the documentary speaking about a childhood full of love, family, and endless hours spent with his cousins playing outside, riding bikes around the neighborhood, and reveling in the freedom of childhood. All of their lives were irrevocably changed after the hurricane, and Buckles spends the film documenting the aftermath and unpacking the long-term effects it had on the young adults who lived through it.

Buckles takes viewers on an emotional journey as he interviews people who were as young as 3 years old when the hurricane hit. Some were fortunate enough to leave with their families before it arrived and others were rescued from their flooded houses or from the roofs of their destroyed homes. He also takes times to explore the psychological impact it had on children like him and how that mental and emotional scarring is still present to this day.

Buckles narration grounds the film in his personal experience, which gives it emotional resonance, but he also expands the story past himself and his family to give viewers a clear and complete picture of the changes Hurricane Katrina brought to the city of New Orleans. Buckles and his subjects explain how neighborhoods that were once familiar and tight knit, became full of unfamiliar and dangerous new faces once refugees began to return to the city.  Neighbors who were once loved and trusted by the community, were either dead or displaced and robbing communities of the feelings of safety and familiarity they’d once held dear.

Katrina Babies pulls off the extraordinary feat of telling a story about black pain and trauma, without it becoming so overwhelming that the viewer can’t appreciate the narrative that is being presented. You can definitely feel the pain Buckles and others experienced when they speak about being refugees suddenly thrust into unfamiliar surroundings and new territory, but he also manages to illuminate the unwavering strength and endurance it takes to have lived through such a tragedy.

The documentary concludes with Buckles and his family gathering for a family reunion. It’s a hopeful and nice bookend to the documentary’s opening. The beauty of this film is that it’s a story about the survival of a family, and a city, in the face of devastating tragedy, and the unbreakable strength of the human spirit.

Katrina Babies is Buckles first feature-length documentary and he was awarded the Best New Documentary Director at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the festival’s first Human/Nature award.

Katrina Babies had its World Premiere in the Documentary Competition section of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

Directors: Edward Buckles Jr.

Runtime: 79m

Cast: Miesha Williams, Cierra Chenier, Arnold Burks, Damaris Calliet, Calvin Baxter, Quintina Thomas Green