Community Filmmaking

In 2003, I decided to return to school to begin a graduate degree in Anthropology and Development. I quickly realized that so much can be lost in translation when an outsider enters a community and presumes to transmit important aspects of that culture to the rest of the world. Too much context is lost when communities are not able to tell their own stories. I began pursuing the idea of training underrepresented groups in filmmaking in 2003 but did not realize my first community filmmaker training endeavor until 2009, with the Saddle Lake First Nation in Alberta.

Later, when I was the producer of the Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival in Scotland, I successfully raised funding through the BFI and National Lottery to train a group of Scottish Borders residents in the basics of filmmaking. The group continues to operate in the region and hosts film watching and film production events throughout the year, including annual screenings at the Alchemy Festival.

Most recently, I worked with the Skatin First Nation in British Columbia to use filmmaking to document and revive language in a community where only three fluent speakers of the language remain.