Featured Work
FIREBOYS
As California forest fires rage across the state, over 3,000 professional firefighters and 3,000 volunteer inmates battle the fires for many months on end, sometimes into the winter. Without incarcerated firefighters, California would not be able to manage the growing intensity of fire season. The employment of inmate firefighters-- and the opportunities and challenges that await them upon their release from prison-- are at the heart of Fireboys.
In the era of mass incarceration, do programs like the one at Pine Grove represent a shift in the criminal justice paradigm from retribution towards rehabilitation? Or are they manipulating a vulnerable population of laborers in order to address the crises of longer and more destructive fire seasons?
For more information, please visit: www.fireboysdoc.com
THE RETURN OF ELDER PINGREE –– Memoir of a Departed Mormon
Lapsed Mormon Geoff Pingree retraces the steps he took twenty-five years earlier in Guatemala as devout missionary 'Elder Pingree'. Combining archival material and contemporary footage as it moves from jungle village to national capital, THE RETURN OF ELDER PINGREE pairs the young Elder Pingree's earlier, single-minded journey with the older Geoff Pingree's ambivalent return to Guatemala now as he seeks to discover what has become of the Guatemalans who once trusted him with their religious faith, attempts to understand the violent and unsettling political conditions of which he was ignorant as a regimented missionary, and grapples with the basic human dilemma of how one might do good in the world.
For more information, please visit: www.returnofelderpingree.com
Want to unlock your child’s future? START HERE. (2018) 7 min
How do the arts benefit a child's well being and future? The Lorain City Schools Arts Academy works to better understand the positives of arts engagement in the community.
blight (2016) 6 min
The foreclosure crisis hit Cleveland particularly hard, and the city is still reeling from the urban blight that accompanies abandoned homes and neighborhoods. blight examines the efforts of Thriving Communities, an organization that helps struggling neighborhoods transform themselves.
• Official Selection, Cleveland International Film Festival, March 2017
FRESH (2016) 6 min
The local food movement is particularly active in northeast Ohio. FRESH explores this endeavor, emphasizing how City Fresh, a community supported agricultural organization, delivers fresh, local produce to low-income residents in Lorain and Cuyahoga Counties.
• Official Selection, Cleveland International Film Festival, March 2017
PLAYGROUND (2015) 17 min
In Brick City, a theater collective on Cleveland’s West Side, children and seniors from a public housing project create and perform their own plays in order to comprehend the gun violence that has scarred their community and share their poignant stories of loss, perseverance and hope.
• Official Selection, Cleveland International Film Festival, March 2017
• Official Selection, Socially Relevant Film Festival (Short Film Category), New York, March 2017
• Official Selection, Vasakh International Documentary Film Festival, Lahore, Pakistan, March 2017
• Official Selection, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio, April 2017
• Official Selection, Canton Film Festival, Canton, OH, April 2017
ALL IT TAKES (2016) 17 min
With the ever-growing prescription and use of opiate pain medication, heroin addiction has spread across traditional barriers of class, race, gender, and age and become common in all segments of society. Yet while the path to addiction is distressingly easy, the way out is unimaginably difficult. ALL IT TAKES explores the opiate epidemic in Lorain County from the point of view of addicts and through the efforts of those who work to help these addicts recover their lives and their dignity.
• Official Selection, Cleveland International Film Festival, March 2016
• Official Selection, Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, October 2016
• Spotlight Bronze Award, Spotlight Documentary Film Awards, 2016
• Focal point of Lorain County Town Hall meeting on Ohio heroin epidemic, Lorain County Community College, 22 September 2016
• Focal point of panel discussion on Ohio heroin epidemic, Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, 8 October 2016
• Jury’s Choice Award, Black Maria Film Festival, 2017
• Official Selection, (In)Justice For All Film Festival International, Chicago, April 20-27, 2017
100 SECOND CHANCES (2014) 5 min
Employment is the most important factor for those who successfully re-enter society after prison. 100 Second Chances goes inside Edwins, a restaurant that offers those trying to make this difficult transition an opportunity to succeed.
• Official Selection, Cleveland International Film Festival, March 2015
• Official Selection & finalist for Creators League Prize, ShortList Film Festival, Los Angeles, August 2015
• Official Selection, Impugning Impunity/ALBA Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, New York, October 2015
• Official Selection, Vasakh International Documentary Film Festival, Lahore, India, March 2017
Get involved here: https://storylens.org/more-on-100-second-chances
Safe at Home (2015) 5 min
Children are most at risk when families confront problems like homelessness, drug addiction, or illness. Safe at Home examines the work of Blessing House, a Lorain County organization that provides a temporary safe home for children of families in crisis.
more food. less hunger (2015) 4 min
Take a trip inside Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio. Second Harvest provides a substantial amount of food in Lorain, Huron, Erie and Crawford counties to hungry adults and children. They serve 104 member agencies including 152 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, mobile food pantries, backpack programs, kids café, and supplemental food programs.