Necessity and Coincidence
New films by Kevin Jerome Everson and Lucy Harris
John-Baptiste Oduor
Clay
Director KEVIN JEROME EVERSON
Year
2026
Country USA
Lunar Visions II
Director LUCY HARRIS
Year
2025
Country
UK
Two images exercise a vice-like grip over American culture. The first is that of the news reporter, his shirt crumpled but tucked in, his tie askew around an unbuttoned collar, his body hunched over a desk, his fingers furiously typing out facts in devastating but understated detail. This is Gus Haynes in The Wire (2005-2008); Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men (1976). They are heroes not because their line of work is esteemed—journalists tend to be held in low regard—but because they redeem it.
The second is that of the public servant—the subject of Kevin Jerome Everson’s sixty-three-minute observational documentary Clay. A similar fantasy of redemption—of political power, of community, of American democracy—lurks behind the film. Shot in a mostly static frame, the camera set at table height, Everson records the Mayor of West Point Mississippi, Rod Bobo, at a town hall meeting where issues of municipal governance are discussed and voted on. Bobo became the first black mayor in the history of the ‘city’ (West Point’s population is just over 10,000), after winning a landslide in a 2023 election against another black candidate, Homer Ryland. It is June 2025 at the time of filming, six months into Donald Trump’s second term and halcyon days for the Department of Government Efficiency, the president’s make-work program for his billionaire friend Elon Musk.
As its name suggests, the justification for the program was ostensibly to improve the efficiency of government agencies. However, the wave of job cuts and encouraged retirements pushed by the Tesla mogul’s team had little effect on public spending. Instead, the Department has created uncertainty, chaos, and a climate of fear, the closest analogue of which might be the McCarthy-era red scare attacks on left-wing academics, journalists and public servants. Some estimates put the number of workers who left the federal service under the second Trump administration—either because they were fired or encouraged to retire—at 315,000, a staggering figure in a country whose civil service is small by the standards of other developed states.
None of this background is either mentioned or alluded to in Everson’s film. Still, Bobo’s tone as he introduces topics and motions is characterized by caution and a concern with procedure, which could be interpreted as a heightened sense of awareness of the political climate. During an extended discussion on the wages of state employees, many of whom are mentioned by name, Bobo puts forward a motion to raise the salary of an employee by $1. The employee in question has not seen a pay increase since 2023. The raise is passed without any opposition.
The immersive effect of watching this film arises out of its duration, and the unvarying attention Everson’s camera gives to its subject. Clay’s willingness to home in on the tedium of politics and governance reveals something about the patience and attentiveness of its subjects. The film arrives at something close to drama in its documentation of a discussion around contracts for banking services. Four banks have put in a bid to manage the city’s money but the fourth, in Bobo’s view, offers a more competitive deal. We witness the mayor dig his heels in in an attempt to secure the best bidder, only to concede, for administrative reasons, that all four banks ought to be used. Admittedly, this doesn’t have the tension of a heist, but what is interesting, and becomes increasingly interesting as the film continues, is how preoccupied Bobo is with a plain-speaking ideal of American civic mindedness. This is a far cry from Musk and Trump’s claims about civil servants as engineers of waste and fraud.
Lucy Harris’ Lunar Visions II is a fitting accompaniment to Clay. Both position cameras stationary and allow the scene to unfold before the lens—a shared interest in what Everson has called the dance between “necessity and coincidence”, a phrase he used to describe the magic of documentary making. The premise of Harris’ film is simple but cumulatively captivating. It shows the moon shot from slightly different angles on various nights during the lockdown period. I found myself watching it four times in a row, forming strong views about my favourite moon—the one that seems to fall down the screen, the one slightly obscured by branches, the one which emerges coquettishly from behind a veil of clouds. There is a sense here, much like in Clay, of witnessing a sequence of events working towards an end busy in some way, wishing to arrive at importance. The stakes of this task are not ever spelled out, just as Musk and Trump’s assault on America’s civil service is never brought to the fore in Everson’s film. But one feels watching Lunar Visions II that there is some hidden mystery, some unspecified meaning or purpose, in the movement of the moon. Seeing the crystal-bright crescent moon, I thought of these lines from John Ashbery’s poem As One Put Drunk into the Packet Boat (1974):
John-Baptiste Oduor is a writer living in London.
This text was commissioned by Open City Documentary Festival to accompany the programme Clay + Lunar Visions II at Close-Up Cinema, 16 April 2026.
The second is that of the public servant—the subject of Kevin Jerome Everson’s sixty-three-minute observational documentary Clay. A similar fantasy of redemption—of political power, of community, of American democracy—lurks behind the film. Shot in a mostly static frame, the camera set at table height, Everson records the Mayor of West Point Mississippi, Rod Bobo, at a town hall meeting where issues of municipal governance are discussed and voted on. Bobo became the first black mayor in the history of the ‘city’ (West Point’s population is just over 10,000), after winning a landslide in a 2023 election against another black candidate, Homer Ryland. It is June 2025 at the time of filming, six months into Donald Trump’s second term and halcyon days for the Department of Government Efficiency, the president’s make-work program for his billionaire friend Elon Musk.
As its name suggests, the justification for the program was ostensibly to improve the efficiency of government agencies. However, the wave of job cuts and encouraged retirements pushed by the Tesla mogul’s team had little effect on public spending. Instead, the Department has created uncertainty, chaos, and a climate of fear, the closest analogue of which might be the McCarthy-era red scare attacks on left-wing academics, journalists and public servants. Some estimates put the number of workers who left the federal service under the second Trump administration—either because they were fired or encouraged to retire—at 315,000, a staggering figure in a country whose civil service is small by the standards of other developed states.
None of this background is either mentioned or alluded to in Everson’s film. Still, Bobo’s tone as he introduces topics and motions is characterized by caution and a concern with procedure, which could be interpreted as a heightened sense of awareness of the political climate. During an extended discussion on the wages of state employees, many of whom are mentioned by name, Bobo puts forward a motion to raise the salary of an employee by $1. The employee in question has not seen a pay increase since 2023. The raise is passed without any opposition.
The immersive effect of watching this film arises out of its duration, and the unvarying attention Everson’s camera gives to its subject. Clay’s willingness to home in on the tedium of politics and governance reveals something about the patience and attentiveness of its subjects. The film arrives at something close to drama in its documentation of a discussion around contracts for banking services. Four banks have put in a bid to manage the city’s money but the fourth, in Bobo’s view, offers a more competitive deal. We witness the mayor dig his heels in in an attempt to secure the best bidder, only to concede, for administrative reasons, that all four banks ought to be used. Admittedly, this doesn’t have the tension of a heist, but what is interesting, and becomes increasingly interesting as the film continues, is how preoccupied Bobo is with a plain-speaking ideal of American civic mindedness. This is a far cry from Musk and Trump’s claims about civil servants as engineers of waste and fraud.
Lucy Harris’ Lunar Visions II is a fitting accompaniment to Clay. Both position cameras stationary and allow the scene to unfold before the lens—a shared interest in what Everson has called the dance between “necessity and coincidence”, a phrase he used to describe the magic of documentary making. The premise of Harris’ film is simple but cumulatively captivating. It shows the moon shot from slightly different angles on various nights during the lockdown period. I found myself watching it four times in a row, forming strong views about my favourite moon—the one that seems to fall down the screen, the one slightly obscured by branches, the one which emerges coquettishly from behind a veil of clouds. There is a sense here, much like in Clay, of witnessing a sequence of events working towards an end busy in some way, wishing to arrive at importance. The stakes of this task are not ever spelled out, just as Musk and Trump’s assault on America’s civil service is never brought to the fore in Everson’s film. But one feels watching Lunar Visions II that there is some hidden mystery, some unspecified meaning or purpose, in the movement of the moon. Seeing the crystal-bright crescent moon, I thought of these lines from John Ashbery’s poem As One Put Drunk into the Packet Boat (1974):
The night sheen takes over. A moon of cistercian pallor
Has climbed in the corner of heaven, installed,
Finally involved with the business of darkness.
John-Baptiste Oduor is a writer living in London.
This text was commissioned by Open City Documentary Festival to accompany the programme Clay + Lunar Visions II at Close-Up Cinema, 16 April 2026.