Video

FEAST: a ballet combines sculptural and painted objects created by visual artist Corrie Slawson with original choreography by dancers Christina Lindhout and Kelly Korfhage to explore the peaks and valleys of human consumption. With FEAST, the complex narratives of seven commodities—Beef, Bananas, Coffee, Sugar, Minerals, Rubber and Timber—are represented.

The story of FEAST is a window into a system of ruler and ruled, consumer and consumed, complicity and resistance, and the pleasure and pain it produces. Dissent and desire are tangled up within a system designed to exploit human and natural resources and leave only some on top.

The real-world inspiration for the setting of FEAST is America and Europe’s Gilded Age of unchecked wealth and growth. The ballet depicts how this time period was blinded by the glitter and glory of an endless cycle of overconsumption. The dancers fall prey to a system with deeply troubling structures: as it farms and manufactures our desires it also feasts on human bodies and natural resources.

Angie Haze is a constant creative force and an agent for change. Learning to play and compose music at a very early age became her escape from the sexual and physical abuse she endured at home. Out on her own and estranged by her immediate family, Angie has a singular goal in mind. To be a revolutionary force. To help everyone find their own inner peace by digging deep and exposing themselves with complete vulnerability. She does this through her music, and the audience is left breathless.

This documentary provides an inside look backstage and in the studio. There, we see this gifted artist at work as she creates music on a multitude of instruments, crafting epic songs that end in hope and growth. Angie’s positivity is inspiring, as we see this emerging artist struggle with the challenges artists face in the ever changing landscape of “the new music industry.” Today, it is a business not based on talent or merit, but on social media presence alone. 

This film is a combination of sit down interviews, and handheld camcorder footage that Angie takes with her on tour and in the studio. Using her personal camcorder as a confessional, we get to see an intimate portrait of an artist in day to day life.

Co-Directed with my Partner Erin Ludlam.

The Forgotten Triangle

In the 1950’s The Kinsman neighborhood in Cleveland was a bustling, prosperous area that residents were proud to live in. But over the decades economic decline and depopulation has turned this once thriving place into a low-income, high crime area where residents struggle amid skyrocketing rates of diabetes, heart disease, high infant mortality and a bevy of other chronic ailments. The future has not looked bright for this and many other urban “Rust-Belt” communities for many years, but three men are on a mission to change that narrative and bring health and prosperity back to the people and community they love.

From Dirt to Dreams

In 2011 childhood friends Damien, Keymah and Randy requested a 1.3 acre plot of unwanted, disused land in their old neighborhood from the City of Cleveland. Strewn with household waste, car parts and other debris, this was no field of dreams but they could see past the rubble and refuse to the endless possibilities that lay before them. Each of them was uniquely suited to contribute their many talents to what would eventually become one of the most fertile urban farms the agricultural industry has ever seen in America.

Lives and Landscapes

Shot in a verite style and edited at a lively, exciting pace the film will follow these captivating personalities as they venture into new communities around the country, changing lives and landscapes forever. The film will feature interviews with some of the most important voices in the movement to transform communities and create sustainable, profitable urban agriculture including Ambassador Andrew Young, and urban agriculture pioneer Will Allen. The filmmakers also intend to secure interviews with other influencers promoting healthier food choices like Russell Simmons, Corey Booker, Lebron James, Jason Brown, Jamie Oliver and many others.

Currently in production, Soil Brothers asks the big questions about food in America: Where does it come from? What is it made of? How do we consume it? And, most importantly, how do we transform it? Follow Damien, Keymah and Randy as they “green the ghetto”, revolutionize urban agriculture and bring hope and inspiration to a new generation of American farming.