Texas-related SXSW films 'Incendiary' & 'Better This World' probe high-profile cases

Amid dozens of powerhouse documentaries, two stand out at this year's South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival, which starts today. And both of them "Incendiary" and "Better This World" raise questions about two high-profile legal cases involving Texans.

"Incendiary," directed by Austin's Steve Mims and Joe Bailey Jr., explores the science behind the arson investigation that led to the conviction and eventual execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004. It also looks at the increasing controversy over the Texas Forensic Science Commission, where disputes about the Willingham case have erupted.

"Better This World" takes us inside the lives of David McKay and Bradley Crowder, two young friends from Midland who moved to Austin and eventually tried to disrupt the 2008 National Republican Convention in Minnesota. Both were arrested on domestic terrorism charges after homemade firebombs were discovered in a room where they were staying during the convention.

Directors Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway take us inside a prison to talk to the two men, as well as into the Midland homes of the McKay and Crowder families as they struggle to cope with the charges against their sons.

The American-Statesman talked with the directors of both projects in the weeks leading up to SXSW to provide background information about how the documentaries came to be.

'Incendiary'

Steve Mims, a documentary filmmaker and lecturer at the University of Texas, was teaching a class in 2009 when a discussion began about a New Yorker article titled "Trial by Fire." The article basically asked whether Texas had executed an innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham, in 2004, for a 1991 fire that killed his three Corsicana children.

Among Mims' students was Joe Bailey Jr., a law school student and an aspiring filmmaker.

"Afterward, Joe wrote me in an e-mail that someone should make a film about the case," Mims says. "I e-mailed him back, and at first I said this would be a whole lot of work. But by the end of the e-mail, I was saying 'Let's do it.' "

Mims and Bailey say that they see the case as raising serious questions about the legal system, especially since jurors and citizens believe that the evidence of arson in a murder case will be scientifically based.

As Mims warned Bailey early on in the project, they were facing a daunting task: videotaping arson experts, examining the evidence, attending various hearings.

"But right when we started on the film in 2009, the governor disassembled the Texas Forensic Commission," says Bailey, referring to Gov. Rick Perry's decision, during a re-election campaign, to replace three members of the commission and name a new chairman. The move came just before the commission was to hear testimony from arson expert Craig Beyler, who planned to detail how the forensic analysis used to convict Willingham was wrong.

"We were focusing on the science of the case," Bailey says, "but it turned into a political fiasco with the governor's actions."

Perry appointed Williamson County district attorney John Bradley as the new commission chairman, and Bradley has repeatedly clashed with representatives of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to proving the innocence of people they believe were wrongly convicted. The Innocence Project has been a big player in the Willingham case, but Bradley has repeatedly said he believes Willingham was guilty.

At one point in "Incendiary," Mims and Bailey travel with their cameras to Harlingen for a commission hearing, only to be turned away by Bradley, in apparent violation of the state's open meetings act.

Bailey and Mims promptly called up the attorney general's office, who persuaded Bradley to open the meeting. Bailey says it was as though the commission "hadn't ever received any public meeting training."

Though political scuffling forms part of "Incendiary," its heart lies in the discussions with arson experts such as Beyler and Gerald Hurst, an Austin chemist with a doctorate from Cambridge University.

Hurst was the first investigator to conclude that Willingham was convicted based on bogus arson evidence. His findings were eventually confirmed by eight nationally recognized fire experts.