Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round
My Role: ARchival Producer and Assistant Editor
Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round is a feature length documentary film about a virtually unknown story from the early days of the civil rights movement. During the summer of 1960, two worlds collided on a picket line at segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park: idealistic black college students from Howard University, and white neighbors from Maryland’s Bannockburn community. Together, this unprecedented coalition took on the park owners, Jim Crow, the American Nazi Party, and the Supreme Court, and produced eight of the 1961 Freedom Riders. Eight surviving protesters tell their stories, exploring how following this first impulse to activism transformed their lives.
Currently in production.
https://auburnseminary.org/hartley/aint-no-back-merry-go-round/
Conversations with Female Clowns
My Role: director, producer and editor
Five women, from a hospital clown to the co-director of the Big Apple Circus, reflect on their experiences of finding the funny in the face of marginalization. Conversations with Female Clowns explores the role of women in clowning as a microcosm of the larger cultural movement; it is a story of a minority within a subculture which will resonate with anyone who has ever felt othered.
Joseph pulitzer: voice of the people
My Role: Archival producer, assistant editor, and associate producer
Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People examines the life and legacy of Joseph Pulitzer, a Gilded Age newspaper mogul; the film is slated to air in the spring of 2019 on the PBS series American Masters. Joseph Pulitzer’s New York newspaper, The World, would transform American media and make him wealthy, admired and feared. Throughout his four decades as a reporter and publisher he created a powerful artistic vehicle that spoke to an unprecedented number of readers. Towards the end of his life, both sickly and blind, Pulitzer’s commitment to fearless reporting would be tested by the most powerful person in American life. On December 15th, 1908, President Teddy Roosevelt delivered a scathing indictment of Pulitzer to Congress - accusing the publisher of libel - for claiming that the President’s greatest achievement, the Panama Canal—amounted to a colonialist overreach built on a $40 million cover-up. Roosevelt threatened Pulitzer with imprisonment. The president proclaimed: “it is high national duty to bring to justice this vilifier of the American people.”
Pulitzer is an American icon who spoke of “fake news” over one hundred years ago. He fought the dangers that the suppression of news had for democracy long before our present threats to press freedom. While he is remembered for the prizes that bear his name, his own heroic battles in the face of grave illness and presidential ire have been forgotten as has the artistry and game changing originality he brought to newspapers. How did Joseph Pulitzer, once a penniless young Jewish immigrant from Hungary, come to challenge a popular president and fight for freedom of the press as essential to our democracy?
Adam Driver narrates the film. Liev Schreiber is the voice of Pulitzer. Tim Blake Nelson is the voice of Teddy Roosevelt and Rachel Brosnahan is the voice of Nelly Bly.
Helga’s story
My role: Editor and Writer
The film follows Helga through the Witness Theater project, a program pairing high school students and Holocaust survivors. Helga was on the Kindertransport. Helga is soft spoken and initially extremely hesitant. As time passes, she forms a bond with Sophie, a 17 year old, and together they explore what Helga’s life could have been if it had been untouched by war. The program culminates with a stage play based on the lives of the survivors. Using a verite approach, along with interviews in front of a black backdrop and footage from rehearsals and performance of the play, we intersperse the students’ theatrical interpretation of Helga’s stories with footage of Helga explaining her war experience to the high schoolers. In this observational documentary we watch, as she remembers childhood abuses, her brother’s death, her father’s disappointments, and the comfort she finds in gratitude.
Witness Theater
My Role: ARchival Producer, Assistant Editor, and Associate producer
Aron is 88 years old, Eazek is 94 and Claudine is 89. Over seventy years ago, although they lost their entire families, they survived the Holocaust and resettled in New York City. Now they are sharing their stories in a unique program led by a drama therapist working with high-school students in Brooklyn. The hope is that this sharing will sensitize the students and give some closure to the adult survivors after all these years. The Witness Theater workshop they participate in culminates in the performance of a play based on Survivor stories.
The film that emerged uses a mix of cinema verite, archival footage, interviews, animation and staged recreations of stories to blend past and present. The Witness Theater program is a vehicle for telling the survivors’ remarkable stories. Scenes from the program’s weekly creative workshops and final performance are interspersed with views of the survivors at home, all within the structure of a dramatic arc that traces survivors’ lives before, during and after the War. The result is a story that, told in the present, imparts insights into the effect of the past on multiple generations, while also illustrating the power and importance of transmitting experience from one generation to the next. As the last generation of Holocaust survivors lives out their final years, the number of individuals who are physically and mentally able to “bear witness” dwindles and the question of what happens to their stories and their experience remains.
Moving Stories
My Role: Marketing Assistant
Moving Stories follows Battery Dance’s dancers as they travel around the world working with at-risk youth through the Dancing to Connect program. Traveling to India, Romania, Korea, and Iraq, they use choreography to collaborate with the young people to produce a final dance performance. The documentary follows the trials, successes, and transformations of both the students and the teachers.
Beatrix Farrand’s American Landscapes
My Role: Production Assistant
Beatrix Farrand’s American Landscape examines the life and legacy of America’s first female landscape architect – Beatrix Farrand. Lynden B. Miller, an award-winning public garden designer, takes us through Farrand’s iconic gardens across America. Both Miller and Farrand are strong advocates for public gardens and access to the natural world. We are privy to the importances of Farrand’s legacy through the continued work of Miller.
http://insigniafilms.com/portfolio_page/beatrix-farrands-american-landscapes/
The Great War
My Role: Research intern
The Great War is a three-part, six-hour series for PBS’s history series, American Experience. The Great War examines the First World War from the perspective of the United States. World War I sparked nationalist pride, determined Woodrow Wilson’s legacy as a president, and redefined America on the world stage. The war effected American society and culture, the American economy, and the role of government. It was a momentous time for America as a nation and a world leader.
Narrated by Oliver Platt.