Screening: Death by Numbers

Oscar-nominated documentary Death by Numbers (@deathbynumbersthefilm) turns an intimate lens on school shooting survivor Sam Fuentes’s journey to reclaim her power, processing trauma through journaling. To prepare for a confrontation with her assailant in his harrowing sentencing trial, she examines complex questions of collective hatred and community justice.

The film is a collaboration between shooting survivor/writer Sam Fuentes and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Kim A Snyder. Interweaving Sam’s evocative poetry and her shooter’s harrowing sentencing trial that will determine whether he lives or dies, Death by Numbers breaks through to an American society increasingly inured to gun violence and seemingly impervious to a nation of traumatized youth. 

Bios 

Kim A. Snyder’s (@kasnyderfilms) most recent feature documentary, Us Kids premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance competition. Prior, she directed the Peabody award-winning documentary Newtown, which premiered in the U.S. Competition at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Newtown screened at premiere festivals worldwide and was theatrically released followed by a national broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens and Netflix. Her most recent short, Lessons from a School Shooting: Notes from Dunblane, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and was awarded Best Documentary Short followed by the DocDispatch Award at the 2018 Sheffield DocFest and a Grierson Award nomination. Lessons… is a Netflix Original and is streaming in 196 countries. Snyder’s prior works include the feature documentary, Welcome to Shelbyville, nationally broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2011, and over a dozen short documentaries. Kim’s award-winning directorial debut feature documentary, I Remember Me was theatrically distributed by Zeitgeist Films. In 1994, she associate-produced the Academy Award-winning short film Trevor which spawned The Trevor Project, a national organization addressing LGBTQ suicide. Kim graduated with a Masters in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and resides in New York City.

Sam Fuentes was in high school on February 14, 2018, when a gunman wielding an AR-15 entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and fired on students, faculty, and staff. Seventeen people lost their lives and many others were wounded. Sam Fuentes was amongst the injured in the Parkland tragedy, and while fortunate to be alive, her body and life changed forever. She has bullet shrapnel permanently embedded in her legs and behind her right eye, and currently manages symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She lost revered friends and faculty members. Despite these tragic events, today, Sam is resolved and committed to a poignant mission: to make sure that no child or adult is devastated by senseless and preventable gun violence ever again. She is currently a film student at Hunter College and lives in New York City.

Host or Publisher Bronx Documentary Center