Academic policies strive to protect the safety of all students, but at times those guidelines can ultimately put the well-being of the most vulnerable people into jeopardy. The process of how the rules that are meant to deter sexual harassment can become the very thing that’s the most damaging is chronicled in the new documentary, ‘Fist Bump.’

Claire Best executive produced, wrote and researched the film. She also closely worked with Madeleine Farley, who directed, produced and served as the cinematographer, on the politically charged and timely movie.

Best hopes that ‘Fist Bump’ draws “a broader national conversation about the extraordinarily complicated issue of social justice overreach and its potential to harm the poorest and most vulnerable. Simultaneously I hope that by demonstrating the importance of trusting passionate storytellers to tell timely, provocative and difficult documentary stories, we will inspire others to do the same.”

‘Fist Bump’ tells the story of Marcus Knight, an astounding success story: a talented and charismatic bi-racial young adult with autism and cerebral palsy who pursues his dream career of a life on Broadway. As a college freshman, he’s accused of sexual harassment from a friendly fist bump and selfies. With the help of his mother, Aurora Knight, he must fight to prove his innocence and piece together his shattered ambitions.

‘Fist Bump’ is having its North American Premiere in the Spotlight and Made in LA sections at the Slamdance Film Festival, which is moving to Los Angeles this year. The documentary will hold its second Slamdance screening tonight, Saturday, February 22 at 6:15pm PT at LA Times Theater @ Quixote. For more information on the movie and its screenings at the festival, including how to buy tickets, visit its page on Slamdance’s website. To help promote the film’s screening at the festival, Best generously took the time earlier this month to talk about developing and producing ‘Fist Bump’ during an exclusive interview over Zoom.

Film Factual (FF): You served as one of the producers on the new documentary, ‘Fist Bump.’ Why were you interested in helping make the film, and how did you become interested in the project?

Claire Best (CB): Well, my background is in documentaries from many years ago. However, for the last decade or two, I’ve been an agent, primarily’ I’ve kept my hand in nurturing documentaries, cause films or very independent films.

On the side of that, I also have a personal interest in student disciplinary matters, and how wrong they have gone on campuses in the last decade and a half. Through that research, I came across a group called Families Advocating for Campus Equality. Marcus’s mother, Aurora, who’s in the documentary, is part of that group.

In 2019, she had let the group know about what was going on with her son, and that she was going to go to court with the case. Then the original court case came back as a victory for her, and everybody was celebrating.

But then a little later on, the school had turned around and appealed the court decision with a different judge and won. So Aurora obviously was completely beside herself.

So I just thought with my background and being in the media, I had to do something. I knew that Marcus’s story was unique. But it also wasn’t unique, in the fact that there are thousands of students across the nation who are facing similar kind of draconian nonsensical disciplinary procedures; it’s occurring whether they’re on the receiving end of it or whether they’re actually trying to get some attention to some discipline that needs to take place. It’s on both sides.

So I felt that with Marcus, he was such an extraordinary person to tell this story through. His pace brings to light the absurdity of it all because to me, he’s like a David versus Goliath.

We have all of these mandates that happen from Capitol Hill and the president’s office saying, “We’re going to get rid of this or we’re going to change that. Or we’re going to do this executive order, or schools are going to do this, or discipline is going to do this.”

At the other end of it, you have these schools who are receiving these mandates who don’t know what hit them; it’s like a whirlwind. They suddenly have to exercise these mandates, or else they’ll lose their federal funding.

Then on the other end, you have the individual students who have no clue what’s going on in D.C. and what these mandates are. They’re the most vulnerable and susceptible to suddenly finding themselves in what can only be described as an Alice Through the Looking Glass kind of scenario. So that’s really how I came across the film.

I also knew Madeleine from ‘Stooge,’ which is the last documentary that she did. I came in very late in the game on that as an executive producer.

I knew having known about Marcus’s story, and having talked to Madeleine about my interest in these masses and keeping her up to speed on them, that she had exactly the right directorial qualities to do this. So many students who find themselves in this position are extremely bruised and vulnerable after their experience.

So there’s a tendency to retract in their shells. They tend not to trust anybody, particularly not anybody from the media. So to draw them out is very hard.

So I went with Madeleine to meet with Marcus to introduce them. It was just Aurora, Marcus, Madeleine and me, and we filmed together.

Then I started off asking the questions to Aurora, Marcus, Mark Hathaway and to others. But then, as we progressed and Marcus became very comfortable with Madeleine, it was very clear that to draw Marcus out even more, having less of us there was better. So Madeleine was able to ask him the questions that Aurora and I weren’t able to ask. So she really went off there by herself and spent a lot of time with Marcus alone, after we started out together.

We also knew that we didn’t want a big team around us. I knew Joel Plotch, the editor, for many, many years; he’s an old friend. He’s done a lot of documentaries, so we brought him in. Madeleine also brought in Martin Kloiber, who she’s actually married to, and who’s a top sound designer.

That’s essentially how we worked. It was a very small, intimate process.

We also knew that we were making a subject that. at the time we started making it, was very controversial in a way. It has been a political football, and it’s not an easy subject for a lot of people to tackle.

FF: While you were working with Madeleine as producers on the movie, how did you work together as producers?

CB: Oh, it was fantastic; I love Madeleine. One of the things that we talked about very early on was that we really wanted this to have humor. You can’t really bring empathy and pathos to a subject sometimes unless you make them laugh and see the absurdity of the situation.

Madeleine and I spent a lot of time together as friends, as well as you know colleagues. We have a good laugh and we knew that we could see the absurdity. I also knew that she could draw that out of Marcus. Aurora was easy because she’s a very big personality and has a great sense of humor and a big heart. Madeline is an amazing photographer and cinematographer, as well as a director.

So we worked incredibly well together. In terms of how we worked together, I wrote the initial outline of what the story would be.

In fact, the original title was going to be ‘Marcus, Can Anybody See Me?’ because I really wanted it. ‘Fist Bump’ is a much punchier title.

I want people who see this film to see the people that we often don’t see. Those people might have unusual communication skills or who have a disability that prevents them from being able to communicate properly. So we have to see and empathize with people who have disabilities.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the whole disability inclusivity narrative. I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that there are things that I don’t qualify as disabled, but there are things that some of us can do that others can’t do.

Marcus can sing, and he has a big voice. He’s also great at gaming and has won prizes, and I can’t do gaming at all. He’s also won homecoming king. So he has things that other people don’t have.

So I want us all to be able to start thinking like, if we can see Marcus, we can help so many people. If we can celebrate what Marcus can do, then even if other people have disabilities, they can still have things that they can be brilliant at.

I think that’s a very important point I want to get across because I want to get across we have to recognize and support that. We have to help people’s preconceived prejudices and biases. Just because somebody may not communicate in what we accept as a normal way may not mean that they may not feel the same feelings, or even deeper feelings.

I have a disabled members or member of my family. I think that you can’t dismiss someone because they have a communication problem. You have to make the effort to figure out how to let them communicate and how to hear them.