New Development
Voices from an American Dilemma
Two-hour special for PBS
How robust today is our 'American Creed?' Does it still impact notions of race and class, in today's America? Sixty years ago, this was the driving question in Gunnar Myrdal's landmark An American Dilemma. That study laid bare the terrifying dissonance between the American dream and Jim Crow reality. In Voices From An American Dilemma we follow the making of that study. With animation, never seen archival footage and innovative production techniques, we explore the very same issues as they effect us today. A diverse “chorus” of commentators to discuss contemporary democratic practices; race and identity; the relevance of the American Creed; growing inequality, the limits of capitalism— through their own personal experience of what it means to be an American now in our so-called post racial era.
An Awakened Heart
Two-hour PBS special, book and website project
An Awakened Heart explores mysticism in the three Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Few who identify as Christians, Jews or Muslims are aware that many of the teaching and rituals they follow emerge from the teaching of the mystics which remain fundamental to their faith traditions. The film examines the art, literature, teachings and practice of mystics today through the live of contemporary practitioners and the insight of religious scholars. The contemporary stories focus oncommunities in Colorado, Boston and Banbury, England. 'Photo montage re-creations', animations and musical practice will create a beautiful study of this often misunderstood dimension of faith. Online and radio collaboration with American Public Radio's Speaking of Faith.
Coming of Age in Aging America
A major three-hour PBS series and public engagement initiative
America is an aging society - and it's not just about old people. Coming of Age in Aging America explores a social transformation unfolding across our - and other modern - societies. This phenomenon will change everything -- how we approach education, work, health, housing, transportation, technology, medical care, the economy. But most important, our relationships with one another as communities and individuals will also change— for Americans of all ages. A robust online presence, and extensive public engagement initiative are integral to the project. A prestigious Board of Advisors and multiple institutional partnerships guide the content.
Who Wants You? National Service and Democracy
A Two-Part Documentary Series, public engagement project and website
Who Wants You? National Service and Democracy challenges us to reflect on what kinds of obligation we have as citizens to serve our country – whether as civilians, as soldiers. We will see portraits of service today – from AmeriCorps to the military. We’ll see portraits of service through our history, including those mandated by conscription. And we’ll hear from those who question any government intervention mandating or funding a citizen to dedicate time to serve his or her country. The project will energize a national conversation about service, political and social engagement and democracy.
What Time is Left
In this one-hour documentary, 24 year old Dakin Henderson follows the end of life journey of his two grandmothers who have aged very differently: one is a healthy and active 86-year old, the other had died after a long and painful decline into dementia. Unanticipated at the beginning of the shooting is Dakin's own confrontation with health issues. The concept of 'slow medicine' is a central theme. The film becomes an intimate, personal story three generations in one family coping with the process of their beloved elders growing old and dying.
Gaining Ground
Twenty five years ago, the Dudley Street Triangle in Roxbury was a moonscape of arson-charred vacant lots that lured illegal trash and toxic waste dumping, illness, and crime—a recipe for neighborhood collapse. A one hour documentary Holding Ground, completed in 1995, told the story of how the neighborhood seized control of its destiny and began rebuilding its community. Today after providing more than 250 homes to low income owners through an ingenious land trust arrangement and after building scores of community organizations to meet the needs of the neighborhood, we will revisit the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and many of its original characters. Gaining Ground will explore how its work has changed the long term prospects of the Dudley Street Area residents and leadership, examine how the current housing and economic crisis will challenge the organization, and reveal the organization itself redefining its role in the community. The first Holding Ground film is used in hundreds of communities as a model and inspiration to work in their own neighborhoods. One of its principal funders, the Ford Foundation, holds it up as one of its most successful community organizing grantees. As one in ten American homes faces foreclosure this year, the fact that only two families in the DSNI land trust initiative have lost their homes is testament to the power of the model – and the people who are making it a reality. Production slated for Summer/Fall 2009.
One Window, Two Worlds
For decades, a beautiful stained glass window depicting the Feast of Pentecost illuminated tens of thousands of baptisms, communions, confirmations, weddings and funerals in an ordinary working class parish of Chicago, St. Benedict’s. Over the years, St. Benedict’s German population became Hispanic, then gentrified. And over the years, American Catholicism changed dramatically One member of that parish whose grandparents likely raised the early funds for the building of the church, moved to live in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. On a lonely Sunday morning, searching for a respite from the sharp loneliness of being white in emphatically black Africa, she went to Mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. And she found to her astonishment a facsimile of that same Pentecost window. It has emerged from the same stained glass workshop in Munich as had the window in St. Benedict’s in Chicago. St. Joseph’s parish too had undergone tumultuous change – from a German colony to a British colony to a socialist black nation to, now, a stable burgeoning African nation. ONE WINDOW, TWO WORLDS will paint an intimate portrait of the Feast of Pentecost window, exploring both parishes through the eyes of one woman – and her family – who lived, loved, and worshipped in both.