Filmmaker Spotlight: John McDonald and Nina Schwanse, Co-Directors of CALL ME MULE

John Sears, who calls himself Mule, has been roaming the western United States with his three mules for over thirty years. The 65-year-old and his animals sleep outside, claiming the right to move freely. Despite arrests, fines, incarcerations and involuntary institutionalization, he keeps on fighting to maintain his nomadic lifestyle.

Bemoaning the loss of open space, urban sprawl and our dependence on the automobile, Mule advocates a simpler way of life in harmony with nature. CALL ME MULE documents Mule’s arduous 500-mile journey to deliver a personal message to the Governor of California in defense of his way of life and his right to choose it.

Regardless of how we personally feel about Mule as an individual, the issues he raises concern all of us: preserving open space, individual freedom of movement, access to public land and the system’s treatment of people living outside society’s norms.

CALL ME MULE will make its North American premiere at Salem Film Fest, screening in-person at the Cinema Salem on Saturday, March 25 at 8pm followed by a Q&A with Co-Directors John McDonald and Nina Schwanse.  Program Director Jeff Schmidt caught up with the filmmakers ahead of the festival.

CALL ME MULE Co-Directors Nina Schwanse and John McDonald

Jeff Schmidt: You are a father/daughter filmmaking team, can you tell us about your production backgrounds and your decision to work on this film together?

John McDonald: I have always been passionate about making documentaries.  My first film, COTTON EYED JOE, which I made as a student at USC’s film school, was shortlisted for an Oscar and garnered awards internationally—including my German wife, who has collaborated with me on many documentary projects. I made several short social issue documentaries, but in order to make a living and raise a family, I had to switch to producing and directing commercials and industrials.  After a successful career in that field, I was finally able to return to documentary filmmaking with THE GHOST MOUNTAIN EXPERIMENT (2009), ON THE DAY(2011), and PIPES & STICKS ON ROUTE 66 (2015). CALL ME MULE took ten years to complete and is my first collaboration with my daughter Nina Schwanse. Nina came into the picture well after all the filming was over and I was trying to raise money to hire an editor. When the pandemic began, she was laid off from her assistant editing job at a large TV production company. She let me know that she was available, had a vision for the film, and would work for much less than the standard rate for editors. I said why not; let’s give it go. The rest is history!

Nina Schwanse: I’ve always been more of an artist and for most of my life veered away from any kind of conventional film production, pursuing painting and video/installation art. However, throughout the creative ebbs and flows, my dad and I have always helped each other out— my first gig was a hand model for a Mattel commercial he produced in the 90s, and he’s been the absolute best PA/DP for my bizarre video shoots from my childhood home in California to the New Mexico desert. Eventually Mule brought us together for a truly collaborative effort— I had a vision for the film based on my father’s experimental persuasion from his early years in film school, and I suppose we met in the middle. I currently work as a colorist in Los Angeles.

JS: How did you meet "Mule," John Sears, and was it difficult to convince him to let you tell his story?

JM: One evening, at dusk, I got a call from a friend who lives near me in a suburb of Los Angeles. He told me to hurry down to the end of our street and look east --- and see the subject of my next film. I ran to the corner just as a somewhat disheveled older man walked by, leading three fully loaded pack mules! He ignored me. I noticed a crudely stenciled website address, 3mules.com, on one of the mule’s panniers. Curious, I went to the site and found only one page with these words:

"We are mules. We are from the outside. We live outside all day, every day. We have come to this place -- a place of golden sparkling light, a place for anybody and everybody. Give your faith, hope and energy to this place at which time you connect to it and receive the magic and endless possibility of infinity. As you walk in this place with these mules you spread the awareness that this beautiful earth, like no other, can only be protected by the way we live one day at a time."

Now I was even more intrigued, so I chased him down. We exchanged a few words, but he was rather cranky and wanted to move on. However, he asked me for directions, and that was enough to give me a clue as to where he might be spending the night. As he was leaving, I asked him what his name was. He said to just call him Mule.

The next morning was Christmas Eve. I had thought about Mule all night and what a unique life he led. Would he be a good character for a documentary?  My whole family had come together for the holidays, and I was reluctant to go off on a wild goose (or mule) chase.  But as a documentary filmmaker, I sensed a good story. The dog needed a walk anyway, so I headed out in search of the guy with the mules. No luck at first, but then I found him, already packing up to start on the next leg of his trip to who knows where. 

He accepted a cup of coffee that I had brought with me. He talked a bit, very softly. With some reluctance he allowed me to retrieve the video camera from my car. Surprisingly, with the camera running, he talked more and with intensity, his eyes closed and his head bent forward, concentrating on every word he said.

This is what I learned. Mule and his animals have traveled for nearly three decades through sixteen states and into Mexico. For the last ten years they have lived every single day outdoors. Throughout his travels Mule has noticed an ever-increasing urban sprawl. Open spaces where they once moved through freely and sometimes spent the night, are disappearing. More and more cars are filling up the roadways, and the expanding urban infrastructure seems to serve just one purpose: accommodate more automobiles.

I asked Mule if he would consider letting me tag along with him on his journey and do more filming. He said yes, with the caveat that I would help him develop his website and social media presence. It seemed like a fair trade with benefits for both of us.

Little did I know at the time that I would be traveling with The Mules off and on for 27 months, up and down the state of California through noisy cities, quiet neighborhoods, and the backcountry wilderness. There was no crew involved in the production.  Our shared experiences during his travels helped to develop a relationship of mutual trust and respect. We enjoyed each other’s company and looked forward to spending time together. We became friends.

Nina Schwanse editing CALL ME MULE

JS: What was your production timeline on the film?

JM: I began shooting on December 24, 2012 and filmed my last shot in March of 2015. I spent 200 days with John and his mules. Some days I got some good footage, other days I did not, and occasionally I did no filming at all. For the next several years I applied for grants, cutting together various demos and scene selects with various editors. I only received two small grants totalling around $10,000. The New York Times OpDocs people took an interest in the project and asked if I'd be willing to edit a short piece for them to consider publishing. I did, but in the end they said it was "not a good fit." When the pandemic arrived, Nina was out of a job and asked if she could take a go at editing the film, so I said why not. She had had some experience making short experimental films for her art installations but had never edited a full-length film. Starting from scratch, she threw out everything that had been previously edited and took an entirely different approach from what I had originally envisioned. My cinematography provided her with a large piece of rough stone, and for two years, on and off, she chiseled away and sculpted it into a beautiful piece of art. Nina found a way to tell a story within my three-hundred hours of footage and deservedly is credited as co-director.

JS:  What is "Mule" up to now and how does he feel about the film?

JM: He seems to be staying around the area of Bakersfield, California with his two new mules and traveling as much as he used to. He was given a "life pass" to roam and live at the Wind Wolves Preserve in Kern County which is part of The Wildlands Conservancy.

NS: Unfortunately Mule became paranoid about the documentary making “Hollywood money” off of his message, and communication with him became difficult. I tracked Mule down based on his social media posts and caught up with him on the “Old Road” near Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita, CA.  This was my first meeting with the “mules” in the flesh. I delivered a handwritten letter explaining our good intentions, and told him the film was completed, that I was John’s daughter, etc. He smiled warmly and philosophized… “How ‘bout that?”… He had always said “the energy” would surface to complete the film, and I believe he’s satisfied that his prophecy came true.

CALL ME MULE screens in-person at Cinema Salem on Saturday, March 25 at 8pm followed by a Q&A with Co-Directors John McDonald and Nina Schwanse - tickets available here.
The film is also available for streaming during the virtual portion of the festival, March 27 - April 2 - tickets available here.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow, Co-Directors of TOWN DESTROYER

TOWN DESTROYER explores the ways we look at art and history at a time of racial reckoning. The story focuses on a dispute over historic murals depicting the life of George Washington: slave owner, general, land speculator, President, and a man Seneca leaders called “Town Destroyer” after he ordered their villages destroyed during the Revolutionary War.

The murals at San Francisco’s George Washington High School, painted in 1936 by leftwing artist Victor Arnautoff, a student of Diego Rivera, ignite controversy in the Bay area in the wake of battles over Confederate monuments across the United States. Heated debates spill into the community and make national headlines, as the murals become a catalyst for a national discussion about censorship, reparations, generational trauma, the ways in which America’s history of genocide and slavery is taught and memorialized, and the differences between monuments built to further white supremacy and art that critiques racism.

How should a changing society deal with controversial works of art? Do the intentions of the artist matter? or just the impact on viewers? Is it censorship to destroy murals that show painful histories? What does our country owe people who have been historically wronged?

Salem Film Fest is happy to be collaborating with Marblehead High School on some of this year’s Blog Posts and we are grateful to MHS Teacher Connor Ryan who has been working with his students in exploring this year’s festival.

TOWN DESTROYER Co-Directors Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow

MHS: You two have been working together for a long time. Could you please tell us about the nature and trajectory of your partnership?

Deborah Kaufman: We’ve been making films together since the mid-1990’s, starting with our film BLACKS AND JEWS. Neither of us went to film school but we were connected to the vibrant Bay Area film community through our prior work in media (Alan in radio as a radio news director and TV news producer; Deborah as Founding Director of the Jewish Film Festival). We had the benefit of collaborating with amazingly talented, smart and creative filmmakers here - who often help each other and work on each other’s films - which really jump-started our 2nd career. We both act as Producers and as Directors on every film, and work closely with our editors during post-production, which is often where the films actually come together.

MHS: How did you find this project?
Alan Snitow: We always have a hard time remembering exactly how we get into projects. That may be because making a documentary is a long-term effort, and so to consider doing something so crazy as that, it has to be over-determined with lots of reasons and inspirations flowing together to make it possible (and hopefully sometimes funding too). In this case, the debate over the murals had hit the local papers, and the San Francisco School Board was going to hold a public hearing about the issue. So we decided on short notice that we would take my visiting cousins with us and film the event. The debate was passionate, and we thought the art presented a much more interesting and complicated case study than the completely racist monuments to segregation and the Confederacy that have been discussed a lot in the media. We like that kind of complexity since it allows us to dig into the subject and present multiple points of view.

MHS: How long did filming take?

DK: This film began in the summer of 2019 and was completed in the summer of 2022. Three years is about how long it takes us to make most of our films - with probably half the time spent in research, pre-production and fundraising, and the other half in shooting and editing the film. Most of the filming was done here in the Bay Area where the story takes place, but we also took short trips to the Sierra foothills/Gold Country, Los Angeles, and Washington DC for interviews and to follow our characters.

It was hard to make a film during the height of the Covid pandemic - being stuck at home in the beginning and waiting for the vaccine, venturing onto airplanes, following Covid filming protocols, etc. Then there was the challenge of transcending the ‘he said/she said’ aspect of the film - wanting to ‘break the binary’ and suggest a new way of approaching the dispute over the murals. We like to think of our films as ‘interventions’ - opening possibilities, making things more complex and interesting for our audiences. We want to challenge ourselves, too, in the process. Talking with so many people who had varying opinions was wonderful in that respect.

MHS: Please describe some of the highlights of making this film: is there an interview or scene -- or even a shot -- that you're particularly proud of?

AS: We had a good time making this film cause the people we were talking to were fascinating and real personalities, so it’s hard to choose.  I think that the scene with artist Dewey Crumpler going back into George Washington High School to look at his 45 year old murals was wonderful. We spent several months trying to get into the school to film the murals with him, and the school district turned us down, but the principal said yes, and we agreed to film using only our cellphones. So that scene was very spontaneous. We’re also very proud of the scene with curator Paul Chaat Smith at the National Museum of the American Indian. Paul doesn’t like being interviewed very much so we had to convince him, which we did because we love his written work and his dry sense of humor. And of course for us, we are very gratified that Dewey and Paul—who trusted us—in the end really like the film.

MHS: Would you like to tell us about any new projects you’re working on?

AS: A lot of what you do in editing documentaries is eliminating from the film many of the things you really want to put in, but just won’t fit. One of the things we couldn’t put in was the wonderful art that Dewey Crumpler has been making since the George Washington High response mural back in the mid-1970’s. So, we’ve decided to try to make a short film about Dewey’s more recent work, which is very different from his mural work—much more abstract, but also very focused on wide swathes of history—particularly about the history of global trade from the slave trade to the current globalized system of trade in commodities.

MHS:  What do you want your audience to take away from this film?

DK: We want people to understand the imperative of what Robin Kelley talks about at the end of the film: that there is no one story, that each of our stories is incomplete, that we need to listen to each other and not keep screaming at one another. The film raises some big questions about the goal of education (to provide safety and security or to provoke and empower?), the break-up of political alliances, the meanings and uses of terms like victimhood and trauma, and the purpose and role in society of controversial art, which will always be with us. We hope that people are able to think more deeply about these things after they see the film.

TOWN DESTROYER screens in-person at the Peabody Essex Museum on Friday, March 24 at 5:30pm followed by a Zoom Q&A with Co-Directors Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow - tickets available here. 

The film is also available for streaming during the virtual portion of the festival, March 27 - April 2 - tickets available here.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Dawn Mikkelson, Co-Director of FINDING HER BEAT

Taiko drums have existed in Japan for over 2,000 years. The drumming art has been off limits to women for centuries. Until now.

In the midst of a frozen Minnosota winter with Covid rumbling in the background, a master of Japanese drumming and a Korean adoptee from Minnesota join forces to convene an all-female troupe of the world’s best Taiko drummers and claim a cultural spotlight previously reserved only for men. Through grueling rehearsals, the talented women share their vulnerability, pain, and joys and navigate their way through differences in culture, age, language, and performing styles.

As the clock ticks toward their first performance, it’s clear their story has become much larger than Taiko. Buoyed by dynamic drum performances and do-or-die spirit, FINDING HER BEAT is an energizing and uplifting story of music, cultural expression and, above all, sisterhood.

Salem Film Fest is happy to be collaborating with Marblehead High School on some of this year’s Blog Posts and we are grateful to MHS Teacher Connor Ryan who has been working with his students in exploring this year’s festival.

FINDING HER BEAT Co-Directors Keri Pickett and Dawn Mikkelson

MHS: How did you find this project?

Dawn Mikkelson: Jennifer Weir and I have been friends for over 20 years. We were meeting for lunch one day and talking about our creative lives, as working artists and queer mothers. Jen then shared her vision for HERbeat and asked if I might film it for historical documentation. The more we talked, the more I felt that this was bigger than a concert video. That we could explore what it is to be a woman in the arts, while also showing the story of these women coming together to do something groundbreaking. Jen liked that idea. I brought in Keri Pickett to co-Direct and become the DP and we started shooting in the fall of 2018.

MHS: How long did you film for?

DM: We shot from Fall 2018 to March 3, 2020. It was only a few days in 2018, then a couple weeks in Japan in 2019, and then at over 2 full weeks in 2020 leading up to the concert and afterwards. Then COVID shut everything down. Luckily, the performance happened, so we went into post-production.

MHS: There are a number of intimate moments throughout the film. What were the dynamics in the house like?

DM: The house was full of excitement, with late nights of bonding, practicing, celebrating, and of course… there was the flu that tore through the house, infecting both performers and the crew of the film. We actually had to pull in an additional cinematographer friend when Keri became too ill to film for a couple days.

MHS: How do you define the barrier between what should be filmed? Do you discuss what you would like to film with your subjects, or do you record everything and make decisions later?

DM: Our participants allowed us to film pretty much everything. There were a couple of decisions to not follow a couple of story lines that participants felt were too intimate. There were also a couple of conversations that were filmed that participants said, in the moment, please don’t use this. We respected that. They gave us so much access and there is no reason to exploit that access. At the end of the day, our goal is to lift up the larger story, while respecting the participants' boundaries. The participants understood this and trusted us to tell this story in a respectful way.

MHS: Some of the performers are at the beginning of their careers, while some are established stars of the genre. Could you discuss the ways in which this influenced filming?

DM: We wanted to have a diversity of experience represented on screen. From master taiko players who changed the field for decades to those who were just breaking through in their careers. These were considered the ‘All Stars” so all of them did have a level of success in their home region and country. This diversity of experience helped illustrate the great strides that have been made by those of marginalized genders in Taiko, but also the challenges that still exist in this performance art.

MHS: Have you kept in touch with any of the women in HerBeat?

DM: Absolutely. Of course Jen and Megan are a part of our weekly planning and a key part of our distribution team. In addition, most of the HERbeat performers have participated in screenings as guests and sometimes performers. We are currently developing a screening tour with our Japanese participants for later in the year. As we develop our impact campaign, they will continue to be involved, as we want this film to help bolster their careers, as well as introduce communities to the taiko in their own home towns.

MHS: What do you want your audience to take away from this film?

DM: To follow their dreams. It may sound cliché, but that is exactly what these performers did, in spite of all the barriers and glass ceilings they encountered. In addition, the fact that Jennifer Weir and her team decided to stop waiting for the taiko world to elevate it’s gender minorities and instead they elevated themselves, is something that can transfer to any field. If you aren’t invited to the party, throw your own party! That’s what FINDING HER BEAT is all about. And now the world of taiko is eagerly scrambling to catch up.

FINDING HER BEAT screens in-person at the Peabody Essex Museum on Friday, March 24 at 11am. The film is preceded by a Taiko drumming performance and followed by a Q&A with Film Subject Jennifer Weir - tickets available here. 

The film is also available for streaming during the virtual portion of the festival, March 27 - April 2 - tickets available here.

Filmmaker Spotlight: Margo Guernsey, Co-Director of NO TIME TO FAIL

Salem Film Fest is happy to be collaborating with Marblehead High School on some of this year’s Blog Posts and we are grateful to MHS Teacher Connor Ryan who has been working with his students in exploring this year’s festival.

2020 is the year Americans discovered the existence of the elections administrator. Once invisible to the general public, these civil servants are central characters in an ongoing public debate about the integrity of our democracy. With unprecedented access to its frontlines, NO TIME TO FAIL is a verité film that tells the story of election officials across the state of Rhode Island. Amidst an onslaught of attacks from a sitting President and the deadly threat of a global pandemic, these public servants worked around the clock to secure the vote for their community. This film is an invitation to the American electorate to meet the people whose job it is to uphold the scaffolding of our republic and protect free and fair elections in what emerges as an unprecedented voting adventure in one of the most significant elections in US history.

Co-Director Margo Guernsey directed COUNCILWOMAN, which screened at Salem Film Fest in 2019. Co-Director Sara Archambault produced COMMUNITY PATROL, which screened at Salem Film Fest in 2018.

NO TIME TO FAIL Co-Directors Margo Guernsey and Sara Archambault.

MHS: Can you tell us about your collaboration on NO TIME TO FAIL - how did you find this project?

Margo Guernsey: Sara has a close friend who works in the Sec of State's office. As things were shutting down, the reality of having to run one of our most important elections in recent history during a global pandemic was setting in. Conversations about that led to the idea of documenting the process. My work has always centered on labor, specifically the work that runs our economy and is rarely seen or recognized. I had also made a film in Providence's political circles, so I had connections in some of the spaces where we would need access. Sara and I had been work colleagues in other ways, but had never made a film together. She reached out to me and proposed the project, and the collaboration grew from there.

MHS: How long did it take to make - from pre-production to final editing?

MG: We started research and pre-production in June 2020 and finished the film in July 2022.

MHS: What were some of the challenges you faced in making this film?

MG: This is a pandemic film, and that was the challenge. It wasn't safe for a crew or for the film participants to bring extra people into their offices. So Sara and I picked up cameras and sound gear and did it ourselves. We did some training sessions with cinematographers and sound recordists, and went through some different camera options. We actually started filming on iPhones! The film participants had to take an incredible leap of faith in letting us in. Their work is particularly scrutinized by the public, and the trust that was required for us to be hanging out with cameras during the most stressful time in their careers required them to believe in us. We had to build trust quickly because the idea for the film didn't form until they were already under the gun.

MHS: Please describe some of the highlights of making this film: is there an interview or scene -- or even a shot -- that you're particularly proud of?

MG: It is the most mundane scenes that make me most proud. The palpable sense you get of the everyday work in these older offices sheds light on what it means to be doing this work in a way that cannot be captured any other way.

MHS: How did you find and choose your subjects?

MG:  We went through a pretty rigorous process looking at the entire State of RI, and reaching out to folks in diverse places. We wanted to cover urban and rural, conservative and liberal, so that people from across the state would feel seen.

MHS: There are a number of emotionally charged moments throughout the film. Do you discuss with your subjects the potential for these ahead of time? Are there any sequences you excluded because they felt too personal?

MG: We talked at length with the film participants about what it would mean for cameras to be around filming sensitive moments. We did not cut anything for personal reasons, but there were planty of super stressful days when we did not film. Sometimes one of the film participants would just say, "I can't do it today." Our role is to document an election, not to dramatize their lives for the purposes of entertainment.

MHS: More generally, were there any privacy issues concerning the voting process that made filming difficult?

MG: We were very careful not to include names or personal information from any of the paperwork in the offices. In fact we had to go through and blur out things that got in by mistake. We were also very conscious of privacy issues when voters were casting ballots. Since voting is a public act, and it is meant to be transparent, we could film more often than you might realize.

MHS: What do you want your audience to take away from this film?

MG: We want viewers to have a greater appreciation for the people who administer elections. We refer to them as the footsoldiers of democracy. Without them we would not have elections. They are the ones that make sure you can register to vote, cast a ballot, and that your vote will be counted. They are extremely non-partisan and work incredibly hard to make sure that we have a constitutional right to vote. Most Americans do not understand their work, and yet it is crucial to our political system. We hope viewers walk away with a new understanding of what it takes to administer elections, and a desire to support that work.

MHS: Would you like to tell us about any new projects you’re working on?

MG: I have a film about the women who defied the Episcopal church to be ordained as priests in 1974, challenging two thousand years of patriarchal Christendom coming out next year. It is called THE PHILADELPHIA ELEVEN.

NO TIME TO FAIL screens in-person at Cinema Salem on Saturday, March 25 at 12:20pm followed by a Q&A with Co-Director Margo Guernsey - tickets available here. 

The film is also available for streaming during the virtual portion of the festival, March 27 - April 2 - tickets available here.

Behind the Scenes of SFF 2022 - Lodging Director, Liz Cronin

This post was written by Zoe, Summer, Caitlin, Cate, Arielle, Martha, Madeleine, Yasen, Celine, Lilly, Lia, Lauren, Griffen, and Griffin -- Marblehead High School's glorious G block AP Language and Composition class. Salem Film Fest is grateful to MHS Teacher Connor Ryan who worked with his students to explore this year’s festival.

After two years of a virtual film festival, Salem Film Fest 2022 saw a return to an in-person festival with filmmakers traveling from all over the United States to the North Shore.  Liz Cronin works behind the scenes as SFF’s Lodging Director ensuring that filmmakers enjoy their time at the festival and in Salem.

SFF Lodging Director Liz Cronin - Photo by Joey Phoenix, Creative Collective

MHS: How did you get into event planning?

Liz Cronin: In my first job out of college, I graduated with a psychology major and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I didn't think I wanted to be a psychologist, but I also knew one aspect of psychology was called organizational development. Basically, you help a company develop its employees and come up with training ideas to keep employees motivated. The company that I got my first job with did what's called incentive travel. They would have their sales employees participate in a contest and would sponsor the winner and a guest on an all-expense-paid trip for one week. We’d have [everything] planned, so that's where I got involved. I started in sales and then I had a knack for coordinating travel, … and I basically just fell into it.

MHS: What is your role with Salem Film Fest?

LC: For the past 15 years, I have been the Lodging Director for Salem Film Fest. Prior to that, I worked for various corporate companies to coordinate incentive travel programs, a way for employees to earn rewards for their hard work. In addition to my current role at Salem Film Fest, I work remotely for a company based in Switzerland that informs doctors and patients about emerging pharmaceutical drugs.

SFF Lodging Director Liz Cronin and SFF Music Coordinator Brian Donnelly at SFF 2022 after YUNG PUNX: A PUNK ROCK PARABLE - Photo by Shane’s Maine Photography

MHS: Filmmakers attending screenings is a large part of what makes a film festival exciting.  How have you approached local accommodations to convince them to host filmmakers?

LC: I build relationships. I think in the 15 years, I’ve kept all my relationships because I make it a win-win. It’s not a take, take; it's building a partnership, and when I call, I don't have to sell [the festival lodging sponsorship] every year because they know I respect their hospitality.

 MHS: Has there ever been an interaction with anyone where you’ve said ‘I quit’?

LC: Actually, no. I have really good relationships. I get snappy at the end [when I’m stressed about stuff], and then when it's over I just have a good [sigh] of relief all went well. [During the festival] everyone is calling me, filmmakers are stuck, their flight didn’t get in, I have to go back another two hours later to get them. We had one filmmaker that brought her subject from India who didn’t speak English. The filmmaker was late but the subject was there. A teacher from Marblehead went and said ‘Hey I’m from the film festival’ and showed her her shirt and got the woman to believe that she wasn’t abducting her. She finally trusted her to go up to Salem with her but it's those fun stories.

MHS: Were you always a fan of documentaries?

LC: Never. I’d watch them, but now I know it's more than just someone talking to a camera like Frontline. There's so much more to it than just what you think documentaries are and I think that’s what exposed me to it. Another thing about documentary films is there's no good guy or bad guy. You come out of the film thinking ‘I’m not sure what I think about it but at least I have a 360-degree picture of an issue.”

After SFF 2022 screening of CAT DADDIES - Photo by Joey Phoenix, Creative Collective

MHS: In your opinion, what documentary theme has been the most attended or the most recurring over the years?

LC: Inspirational stories. We had a musician who all of a sudden became paralyzed and lost his ability to play music. He struggled through years of rehabilitation and actually at the live event came and did his first performance. That was amazing because you saw the film (LIFE. SUPPORT. MUSIC.) and then you saw the live person.

MHS: What is the one thing that makes you keep doing this, keep working so hard?

LC: Oh, it's the fun. We have parties, we get to talk to the filmmakers. It’s so interesting to talk to some of these directors and see how they got into the documentary film industry.