Learn more here.
Sifuna Okwethu: We Want What's Ours
(2012, story editor)
A short
documentary about loss, resistance, identity and the
elusiveness of justice as experienced by the Ndolilas, a
South African family. The family’s land was taken by the
apartheid
government in the 1970s without compensation, and ever
since then they have been on a quest to get it back.
Directed by Bernadette
Atuahene.
Running time: 19 minutes
Premiere at Africa World Documentary Film Festival - screenings in Cameroon, Nigeria, Missouri, Barbados, and London, UK.
Learn more here.
Goalie
(2011, producer)
Running time: 10 minutes
Premiere at the 30th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, 2011.
Great Lakes International Film Festival
Cannes Short Film Corner
Chicago
Heights
(2010, co-producer)
A feature length narrative adaptation of Sherwood
Anderson's landmark novel, Winesburg, Ohio. Directed by
Daniel Nearing.
"Best
Art Films of 2010" - Roger Ebert.
"It is a beautiful book, and has
inspired this beautiful film."
- Roger Ebert.
Premiere, in competition, at the 2009 Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea. With an annual attendance of 200,000, TIME magazine has recognized Pusan as "Asia's most important cinematic event."
Winner for Best Fine Arts Film at International Black
Cinema in Berlin, Germany. Honorable Mention,
Narrative at the Columbus International Film + Video
Festival. Screened at the San Francisco Black Film
Festival, Black Harvest International Festival of Film and
Video, Cannes Short Film Corner and the Jubilee Film
Festival.
Shot in black & white and color on HD CineAlta.
Bevel's Last Sermon
(2010, director, editor, and producer)
As Dr. Martin Luther King's collaborator, Reverend James Bevel was a key strategist of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. His later career was marked by controversy and an incest conviction. This documentary is a candid interview with Rev. Bevel 10 days before he died.
"Jim Bevel was Martin Luther King's most influential aide," said civil rights historian David J. Garrow. He cited Rev. Bevel's "decisive influence" on the Birmingham "children's crusade" of 1963 that helped revive the movement, the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 and King's increased outspokenness against the Vietnam War. - from his obituary in The Washington Post, 12/20/08
First public screening at the 2010 Jubilee Film Festival, part of the Jubilee Bridge Crossing Festival. This annual event draws over 30,000 people to Selma, AL to reenact and celebrate the pivotal moment in civil rights history that Rev. Bevel was a driving force behind.
It also screened at festivals in Berlin, South Africa, Atlanta, Florida, and in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center.Shot on HD CineAlta. Running time: 26 minutes and
26 seconds.
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Premiered on PBS in Chicago (wttw11) and
screened for the City of Chicago, Human Rights
Commission, in February of 2009. A feature
length documentary that screened at 14 film
festival across the US and Canada and was shown
in schools, including American University in
D.C., Howard University School of Law,
Middlebury College, and Northwestern University.
Broadcast in February of 2010 again on PBS in
Chicago and on Florida's Education Channel. |
Experiencing the
Park
(2008, director, editor, and producer)
A 30 minute educational and promotional DVD and web
video chronicling the history and how to look at the
large-form sculptures in the Nathan Manilow Sculpture
Park. Includes interviews with noted collector,
Lewis Manilow, and features work by Mark di Suvero,
Bruce Nauman, and Martin Puryear. HD CineAlta.
15-minute version cable broadcast on Tampa Bay Arts Channel in
2010.
Produced with grants from ComEd and the Illinois Arts
Council.
The
New Battle
(2007, director and producer)
A 27 minute HDV documentary providing an overview of Dr.
King’s work in Chicago. Winner for Best Short
Documentary at the 2007 Iowa Independent Film Festival and
premiered on PBS (wttw11) in September of 2007.
In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King came
to Chicago and got a rude awakening. In the South,
in some ways, things were much more black and white,
good vs. evil. Chicago was gray. It wasn’t
at all clear to Dr. King and the rest of the Chicago
Freedom Movement how to solve the problems of
broken-hearted poverty and housing discrimination. Their
successes and failures teach us as much about what
happened forty years ago as they do about what is
happening right now. With intimate interviews with civil
rights leaders like Jesse Jackson, the director uses
period photos and stirring music to tell an emotional
story. “The New Battle” is about how complicated
doing the right thing can be.
This film is a great overview and introduction into an
often overlooked part of the civil rights
movement. It's perfect for young people and the
classroom.
Fading
(2006, director and producer)
An 18 minute HDV documentary exploring the effects of a
brain injury on a family of academics. Winner of the
2006 Independents’ Film Festival’s award for Best Student
Documentary and aired on The Education Channel.
What happens when a car accident changes a family?
The director, Seth McClellan, intimately interviews his
mom, dad, and himself, creating a powerful, funny, and sad
commentary on the effects of traumatic brain injury.