GROUNDED IN FILM
ME AND THE LIGHT
(2024)
This (unreleased) short film reveals how art can help transform ourselves and our communities struggling with violence.
The film mirrors the creativity born in Memphis that is foundational to the art that is today seen around the world.
As violence continues to threaten Memphis’s existence, Me and the Light proposes that reviving the arts, creativity and community at this city’s heart and addressing the power of its trauma will allow this great city to overcome, to heal and to lead other communities facing their own trauma to do the same.
AS I AM
(2012)
A father murdered. A heart stopped.
Chris Dean had ten minutes of fame meeting President Obama, but it quickly fell aside as he was forced to face the reality of poverty.
Chris and EMMY® Award-winning filmmaker Alan Spearman walked Chris’s neighborhood for eight weeks observing and recording what became the script of As I Am.
This film floats through this remarkable young man's landscape, revealing the lives that have shaped his world. Poetic and powerful imagery, captured by Spearman and Mark Adams, is combined with Chris’ trenchant observations about life.
APRIL
(2012)
Faith Jackson’s smile obscures the pain of the past and her fear of bullets flying past her mother's apartment in the Soulsville neighborhood of Memphis.
But Faith has a refuge: A magnolia tree that she has named April gives her comfort. She enters April through a hole in the trunk and waters her and checks her heartbeat.
Nearby, Hattie Mae looks back and dreams of youth and health. She places handwritten messages on a giant battered tree stump in her front yard telling those who pass to live now.