Pigeon Kings, a new documentary by filmmaker Milena Pastreich, tracks a peculiar subculture of pigeon competitions in South Central Los Angeles presided over by the godfather Keith London. Milena brought the rollers to Rough Cut Retreat back in July, and afterwards we sat down to talk about how she met the pigeon community and how the story evolved from her initial fascination.

TF: How did you get involved in this project?

MP: I made a scripted short film in 2011 and the lead in the film had pigeons, many scenes took place in her pigeon coop. So, during pre-pro, I was location scouting coops all over LA and upon visiting one, I looked up into the sky and saw pigeons doing somersaults. I got pretty annoying asking one question after the next, so the man who owned the coop invited me to a Roller Pigeon auction on that very day. I headed to the event, where I saw hundreds of men wearing pigeon T-shirts, talking about birds, and looking up into the sky. This world felt surreal and that is why when someone asked me what I was doing there, I responded “I’m making a documentary.”

TF: How long did you spend shooting?

MP: I spent two summers (2011 and 2012) meeting people with a camera, that was my form of research. In 2013 I got a grant from Canon via Film Independent, which meant I had C300 for 6 months. During those 6 months I was fully immersed in shooting the subjects of the doc in their day-to-day lives. In 2015 Canon loaned me the camera again and I spent 2 months shooting all things competition. In 2016 and 2017 I shot very sparingly to follow certain story lines.

TF: Can you tell me a little about the pigeon rolling sport?

MP: Roller competitions exist around the world and the fliers always compete from their own backyards so it’s the judge who travels to them. If it’s a national fly, the judge travels around the US, if it’s a local fly, he travels around the LA area. A South Central Roller competition starts around 6:30am on a Saturday or Sunday. Over the course of the fly, the group of participants caravan from house to house. Whoever is flying releases their birds and they have 20 minutes to fly a 20 bird team. There is a judge counting how many birds do somersaults in unison, if 5 or more pigeons roll at the same time, the competitor gets points. There’s a lot more to the scoring system, but that’s the basic concept.

TF: During the post-screening conversation, we talked a little about how this film really served as a portrait of these people in this time, as opposed to a “sport” film. What about this group of people really stood out to you and made you want to continue filming?

MP: I’m glad it’s more of a character film than a sports film because that’s most definitely where my interests lie. What drew me to the men is their passion slash obsession with their birds. They have a real connection with their pigeons, they call them “children” and consider them part of their family. Over time, it became clear that the relationship is so extreme because they depend on their pigeons, just as their pigeons depend on them.

TF: When constructing the portrait of these people, what were you careful about including and excluding?

MP: Knowing what to include and exclude is such a long process. I don’t think I was calculating what needed to be in our story and what didn’t, instead it revealed itself and is still revealing itself as we edit. Everything started on a scene level though. Since most of our footage is verité, we began by assembling all the scenes that stood out and then whatever was compelling became a building block for our story. With Keith, the heart of his story is his relationship with his children. For Choo, it is his barbershop, which is where we get a sense of the South Central apart from the pigeons.

TF: Tell me a little about how you wove together the personal narrative, and the narrative of the sport. You do it really well in the film so we get this really lovely dual story line of the competitions and the interpersonal relationships.

MP: Glad to hear it felt woven together. We began by mapping out the personal narrative which included a competition, so there was a natural sports narrative built into the personal narrative. We then worked backwards and figured out what we needed to explain for that competition to make sense. In terms of the sport, our approach is to explain the minimum amount necessary so people are not confused or annoyed, wanting to know more.

TF: I think you’ve also done a really amazing job of grounding the film in a certain place and time – can you talk a little about where it’s set and the community surrounding these characters/sport.

MP: Pigeon Kings takes place in South Central LA and although we are immersed in a specific pigeon world, the film is very much about the neighborhood. Most of the pigeon enthusiasts in South Central are Black and Latino men in their 40s and 50s who have had rollers since they were children. There are a handful of pigeon clubs in the LA area and the members spend weekends competing against each other and attending pigeon auctions. If they’re not involved in club activities, they are stopping by each other’s backyards for a hang; there is a very strong sense of community.  

TF: You chose very distinct music for the film. Why that sound and what inspired the decision?

MP: Birdman stole our title so we stole their soundtrack. Only kinda kidding. Our film was originally titled Birdmen and I was very inspired by the Birdman score. With a documentary like this, that takes so long to make, it’s fascinating to watch prior work samples and see the evolution of the music. We first started with classical and although it worked for short teasers and work samples, it never seemed like it could carry the entire film. I knew I wanted to embrace one genre of music or have a similar sound throughout since we are entering such a specific world. Last year when we made a teaser for a Kickstarter campaign, we were playing around with different options and when we tried jazz drum solos and drumlines we got VERY excited.

TF: What stage of post-production were you in when you came to Rough Cut? Had other people seen the film, were you pretty far along in the feedback process?

MP: We had been editing for over a year and had had 4 screenings.

TF: During the retreat, you got some feedback from a bunch of different filmmakers, what was some of the best feedback you got and how has it impacted your film so far?

MP: We got tons of great feedback at the retreat. One take-away was that one of our characters was outshining the other so we’ve been working on making the less popular character more present. Furthermore, some of the rules of the sport were confusing so we have been clarifying them. We got so many great notes but one of the best ones was so simple, reminding us of the scale of the changes that needed to be done. Very small changes will make a huge difference. Hearing that was very important.

Rough Cut Retreat is a collaborative project from True/False Film Fest and Catapult Film Fund that strives to give filmmakers with new projects dedicated time, mentorship, and feedback to help their work move from a rough cut to a final cut.