Post-Production: Fall 2024
Farming
Director- Graham Meriwether
Editor- Jasmin Cheng Editor- Thomas Rivera Montes
Farmers across America share thoughts about life and farming.
The Magic Lantern
Director- Eli Brown. Producer Michelle Bowen-Ziecheck.
In 1994, Marijke Brown receives a letter from a stranger–- a stranger with secrets about her life and a story to tell. Marijke and her son, a documentary filmmaker, journey across three decades and three countries, discovering the woman who gave her life, the woman who saved her life, and the woman she became. Every family has a story. Every family is a story. How do you tell yours when someone wants it erased?
The Good Death
Director- Tiffany Jackson
THE GOOD DEATH looks at how the African based religion Candomblé turned into a cultural tourism staple in rural Cachoeira, Bahia Brazil after centuries of persecution. This abrupt change turned the focus to the Sisterhood of the Good Death, who then became the centerpiece of numerous identity based political initiatives. These initiatives are mostly centered on tourism that targeted Black Americans seeking to connect to their heritage. Though the members of the Sisterhood practice both Catholicism and Candomblé, it’s their controversial connection to the latter that has plagued their history.
Through the stories of members the Sisterhood, American tourists (including the director who inadvertently became one of them), and Brazilian tour guides; this film explores the complicated mix of inspirations and goals brought about by women who want to practice their religion, Black tourists that want to explore the diaspora and tour guides that want to capitalize on both of those desires.
Tiny Movements
Director- Laura Sweeney Editor- Michelle Botticelli
Tiny Movements is a short documentary about Jen Green, a professional modern dancer, mother of two who discovered video recordings of her husband raping her after drugging her with high doses of Ambien. The video's time stamps reflect that the abuse had been going on for over four years. She and her children escaped and filed an order of protection.
Once in a safe space, she danced in her kitchen, filmed it and posted it to Social Media. She would write comments about how her body felt, fears, favorite outfits, shattered memories, any thoughts that came to mind. It became her daily meditation, a reflection and her own self-created way to heal from abuse. The project on Social Media was called “Tiny Kitchen Dances” and she danced, filmed and posted every day for three years, little by little healing and breaking isolation. This documentary is the telling of the story of her creation of the Tiny Kitchen Dances project, her healing and ongoing legal battle to protect herself and her children, the journey to put her abuser in jail all while moving forward to rebuild and thrive in her life.
Who Will Feed Us?
Director- Graham Meriwether Producer- Charles Lavoie
A meditative reflection on what inspires people to farm. A hard-hitting exposé of the concentration of power in the meatpacking industry. An exploration into the minds and plans of the leading farmers in America. A personal journey of a family who sets out to feed themselves in the midst of a pandemic.
This mosaic of short visual stories is a glimpse into the past, present and promise of America’s agriculture.