A Cinematic Look at How Artists Work

In a small town in Georgia, filmmakers get the chance to create short films about the lives of artists. For the second year running, we invited Brandon Hinman of AIR Serenbe to curate a selection. Happy viewing, Bitter Southerners.

 
 

The Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture, & the Environment, based in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia, since 2004 has worked, in its words, “to build a community of arts-loving, socially engaged, and environmentally conscious citizens.” Three years after its founding, in 2007, the Institute created AIR Serenbe, a nonprofit artist residency program.

This year, AIR Serenbe showcased its second annual FILMER program. Filmmakers receive commissions from the Institute to create short portraits of the artists-in-residence. The resulting films illuminate not only who these artists are, but also how they work. AIR Serenbe gives the filmmakers full creative control over their work, provide them with a residency of their own, and showcase their films. In short, after 10 years of giving artists the time to create new work, AIR Serenbe is now investing in still more artists — specifically these filmmakers.

In this second year of FILMER, AIR Serenbe has produced a valuable set of artifacts to celebrate its small but mighty residency program. Perhaps more importantly, they honor the artists, filmmakers, culture, imagination, and that bizarre human impulse to make beautiful things.

 
 

Adam Forrester films Blue Delliquanti and Chelsea Thomas on the deck of AIR Serenbe's Rural Studio cottages.

 
 

Here is what you’ll see in this selection of six films from the 16 produced in 2018.

  • A poet imagines life after death as he wades into the Chattahoochee River.

  • A fourth-generation quilter from legendary Gee’s Bend, Alabama, revisits her mother’s home and the community where she learned her craft.

  • A percussionist blends music and technology in ways that make the body want to move.

  • A storyteller remembers her short-lived career as a bruiser basketball player.

  • A composer explores the ins and outs of sound and silence.

  • A children's book author muses on the power of unstructured time in her creative process.

Happy viewing,
Brandon Hinman

 
 

The River - Anis Mojgani

A film by Kristian Melom
Run Time: 4:15

 
 
A film by Ethan Payne Gee's Bend quilter and 2018's recipient of the Fiber Forward Focus Fellowship Louisiana Pettway Bendolph speaks on the history of Gee's Bend, being a quilter, and what quilting has meant to her and her family.

Gee's Bend Quilting - Louisiana Pettway Bendolph

A film by Ethan Payne
Run Time: 4:25

 
 

Technoself - Deantoni Parks

A film by Gregory Miller & Ryan Peoples
Run Time: 9:11

 
 
A film by David Tann AIR Serenbe alum Dame Wilburn performs for 2018's Here Say project. Here Say brought six of the nation's top artists using speaking as performance for a series of creative roundtables and public performances in Metro Atlanta.

Here Say - Dame Wilburn

A film by David Tann
Run Time: 5:33

 
 

Mark Buller

A film by Micah Stansell
Run Time: 7:15

 
 
A film by Crystal Jin Kim Children's book author and 2018's recipient of the Little Shop of Stories Focus Fellowship Kate Hoefler talks about her process behind writing her stories, how to engage with the world, and the gift of time in residency.

Kate Hoefler

A film by Crystal Jin Kim
Run Time: 4:59