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 launched FILMER, a new initiative where they commission filmmakers to create short portraits of the Institute's artists-in-residence. These films illuminate not only who these artists are, but also how they work. AIR Serenbe gives the filmmakers full creative control over their creation, 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.

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

In this curated selection of six films from the 16 produced by FILMER, you’ll experience:

• A bassist and composer who brought to his residency all the stringed instruments he could fit into one 500-square-foot cottage, from a hulking double bass all the way down to a ukulele.

• A storyteller and retired Army paratrooper doing what he does best — telling a great story.

• An artist exploring her daily rituals and how she continues to produce week after week.

• A peek at what happened when we brought eight of the country’s top spoken word artists—poets, storytellers, emcees—together in one place.

• AIR Serenbe artists discussing the power of words in growing up.

• A poet diving into a highly unusual gig, opening for a rock band at a big music venue.

Happy viewing.

AIR Serenbe, the nonprofit artist residency program of the Serenbe Institute, invests in artists of all disciplines. We provide the time and space necessary for the creation of new work, as well as focused public programming that brings audiences in close contact with creative processes and practices.

FILMER 2017 is generously sponsored by Edgar Allan, Mary E. Haverty Foundation, ICU Fund of Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, Foster Swanston, Mercury Restaurant, Serenbe Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, Georgia Council for the Arts, Fulton County Arts Council, and Woodruff Arts Center.