Rob Richardson & Fox Rich Present Their Recorded Reality With 'Time II: Unfinished Business'
When Fox Rich first began the journey of directing this sequel, she was gifted a book which defined a documentary as “pieces of recorded reality”. This was a lesson she’d also learned whilst helping Garrett Bradley with the first film about her and her family. It was a lesson which served her very well during the production of Time II: Unfinished Business.
Released in 2020, Time shined a light on the case of Rich, her husband Rob Richardson, and their nephew Ontario Smith. All three had committed a robbery out of desperation, stealing around $6,000 as a first-time offence. For his part, Richardson was sentenced to 61 years in prison, ultimately serving 21 before he was released. The first documentary (currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime) includes footage of Richardson’s reunion with his family. As it turns out, Rich was already thinking of making a sequel, in order to record the struggles which continued after her husband’s release. In her own words, Rich wanted the documentary to show “that it wasn’t a fairy godmother that came along and helped us obtain freedom for ourselves or for other loved ones.”
As it has done for generations, American society robs its criminals of their humanity, regardless of what crime they committed. As Rich explains, it was important to her that her husband would not be similarly dismissed. “We thought it was important to share, in this climate,” Rich explains, “that Rob was not just a black man sitting behind prison bars, playing dominoes and cards, waiting on somebody to come and rescue him, but that he was deeply involved in his own liberation and restoration to his family.” Time II: Unfinished Business certainly succeeds in that goal. The bond that Rich and Richardson share is extraordinary, enduring through years of incarceration, years of fighting to be reunited, years of raising their children as two active parents, and years of fighting for others.
Portraying all of that wasn’t an easy process. As Rob Richardson reflects, there was a struggle within himself during production of Time II. Besides his own role behind the camera, he was walking a tightrope in front of it as he tried to portray his authentic self without falling victim to performance. For her part, Rich was confident in her ability to document things as they played out: “whatever I capture is our reality.” As with the first film, she also needed to sift through decades’ worth of archive footage of her family, putting together the “pieces of recorded reality… into a narrative”.
And yet, showing the strength of their family, as well as the scope of their struggle, were not all that Rich and Richardson wished to do with this follow-up documentary. “It was more important not just that [Richardson] came home, but what would we now do with our freedom as a family,“ Rich tells FilmSpeak. Not only are they determined to fight for their nephew’s release, but also for others whom they encountered within the prison system. During her own incarceration, Rich met Gloria “Mama Glo” Williams, who had been incarcerated for longer than any other woman in the history of Louisiana. On top of that, as Fox Rich reveals, Williams spent a total of ten years in solitary confinement. Understandably, Rich and Richardson took up her cause, relying on their own experience with parole boards to assist Williams and her family. In the case of the latter, Rich and Richardson point out that no fewer than fifty members of Williams’ family, spanning across four generations, were in attendance during the parole hearing which is included in Time II.
Long is the way and hard, Milton once wrote, that from out of hell leads up to light. Whether you share in their faith or not, one cannot deny that Rich and Richardson are adamant about their goals and their conviction. “Love never fails,” Rich affirms, “because we never fail to love.” By virtue of their perseverance as both parents and freedom fighters, Rich and Richardson prove that philosophy correct. They continue on in defiance of expectations, of prejudices, and of punitive laws which would be considered draconian by most Americans if a foreign country upheld them. They have suffered cruel injustice, spanning decades of their lives for a single action which they only took out of desperation. They have expressed their remorse for that action, and Rob spent more years in prison for that robbery than American war criminals have spent for committing massacres abroad, or what CEO’s have spent for embezzlement of millions. In the face of such a skewed justice system, they are utterly determined to raise their children as best they can, and save as many others from such incarceration. “Louisiana leads the world in incarceration,” as pointed out by Rich, “so if we change Louisiana, then we inherently change the world.”
Check out the full video interview with the Richardons, below:
