Documentary
Collaborating with strong teams, characters, and being a part of complex stories brings life in focus.
Eternal Fire Keepers, 2022-2023
On the banks of the River Ganges, Varanasi, northern India, Om, 17, is forced by his father’s sudden death to lead his struggling Dom community, tasked from ancient times with burning all castes of Hindu bodies but denied basic human rights as the Modi government encroaches upon their traditional lands.
Role: Camera Operator - Varanasi, India
Stage: Late Production, Early Post-Production
Being Michelle, 2019-2022
Role: Associate Producer, Camera Operator
BEING MICHELLE follows the astounding journey of a deaf and disabled woman who survived incarceration under unimaginable circumstances by a system that refused to accommodate her needs as a deaf person with autism. Michelle’s trajectory changed when she met Kim Law, a blind volunteer life coach who teaches classes to people in prison. Today, outside of prison, Kim and Michelle are doing the difficult work of unraveling Michelle’s history, of telling the story of Michelle’s traumatic childhood and her adverse experiences in the criminal justice system. With the support of Kim, Michelle realizes her own voice and strength. Throughout the film, Michelle’s artwork provides her own depiction of the trauma she survived as well as a means to her recovery. Ultimately, BEING MICHELLE is a story of redemption. It is about the bonds between women committed to thriving in a broken system, who are forging a path to healing that can only come through facing the truth and communicating it, together.
Stay up to date on festivals and screenings at beingmichelle.com
After Michael: Memory and Reinvention in Port St. Joe, 2022
Role: Producer, Director, Editor
Port St. Joe sits in the middle of the “Forgotten Coast” along the Florida Panhandle twelve miles east of Mexico Beach, the epicenter of Hurricane Michael’s destruction in October of 2018. Shockwaves and destruction from the storm bled into Port St. Joe, taking roofs, homes, and livelihoods with it. After the initial shock of the destruction, a narrative of togetherness emerged in Port St. Joe. However, just below the surface, the painful legacies of systematic racial segregation, decades of industrial decline, and the effects of environmental degradation remained. This film follows the lives of three city residents each working to improve Port St. Joe while also dealing with foundational issues, such as (inequity, lack of affordable housing, growth pressure, and threats to environmental quality). Along the way, Jeffrey Carney (University of Florida) and the Florida Resilient Cities program (FIBER) is working with the community to explore the connections between past injustices, recovery from Hurricane Michael (2018), long-term adaptation efforts, and identify actionable steps forward.
Funded through the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine for the ‘In Times of Crisis: Stories from the Gulf of Mexico’ series, which focused on the lived experiences of higher education professionals and local communities in the Gulf as they work together to overcome crises.
Louisiana By and Bye / Hakai Magazine, 2021
Role: Producer, Editor, Camera Operator
Off the southeast coast of Louisiana, just over three kilometers north of where Barataria Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico, sits a blip of land called Queen Bess Island. Despite losing nearly 90 percent of its original footprint since the 1950s due to erosion and hurricanes, Queen Bess provides habitat for more than 60 bird species, about 10 of which are nesting colonial waterbirds, including royal terns, tricolored herons, and great egrets. But it’s Louisiana’s state bird, the brown pelican, that makes Queen Bess special. The island, along with two others, supports 70 percent of the brown pelican population in the state; yet without recent restoration efforts, the nesting habitat would have disappeared completely.
Using fines from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which decimated millions of creatures in coastal Louisiana more than 10 years ago, the state has been rebuilding barrier islands, starting with Queen Bess Island.
Seize the Day, 2019 - 2020
Role: Camera Operator
What happens when broken social service systems threaten to tear your life apart? SEIZE THE DAY documents the journey of Terah Williams, a 24-year-old woman battling for dignity and autonomy across state borders as she struggles to survive a mysterious neurological disorder causing twenty or more seizures per day. At age 14, Terah’s life abruptly changed at the onset of an illness which restricted her physically and socially. Pulled from school, then hospitalized, she is catapulted into a desperate search for answers in a failed health system.
As a Black woman in the deep South, Terah struggles in a seemingly unending battle against medical racism, and a system that criminalizes the poor and underinsured. But with support from her grandmother and mother, Terah navigates through a complex web of doctors and alternative medicine practitioners to emerge with unexpected hope.
For more information on Terah’s story, visit seizethedayfilm.com