KY DICKENS is raising finishing funds for her second feature documentary Sole Survivor. The film follows George Lamson, the only person to live through the 1985 crash of Galaxy Flight 203 in Reno, as he reaches out to connect with the 13 other people in aviation history who have also been the sole survivors of commercial flight crashes.
Dickens writes that the crash survivors embody the experiences of those who have experienced a wide range of tragedies: “Families, communities and institutions around the world have neglected the struggles of survivors due to a lack of understanding.
“We hope this film will educate about survivorship so that survivors no longer have to live on the margins of society or on the brink of their own personhood without the resources that they need to heal.”
Dickens aims to complete the film by mid-September. Amy McIntyre is producing. Tom Clayton is DP. Editor, Anna Patel. Dickens’s first film, Fish Out of Water, explored biblical interpretations of homosexuality.
JOE WASH OF HICKTOWN ENTERTAINMENT started production in Elizabeth in northwest Illinois on Aug. 22 of the feature High on the Hog, about a marijuana farmer (Sid Haig) and his “trio of lovely farmhands” (Fiona Domenica Puglia, Dana Bernadine and Brenda-Marie Whitehead) fighting off a DEA agent (Joe Estevez).
With producer Jennifer Scott as an agent infiltrating the farm and Robert Z’Dar as the mayor. Executive producer Kevin Lockhart and Andy Golub wrote the script.
CHRISTOPHER GRIMES of 5414 Productions is directing the documentary Dog by Dog, an exposé of puppy mills that mass produce dogs under inhumane conditions and a portrait of the activists fighting to rescue dogs from the mills and change the laws that allow the industry to continue.
Jessica King of King is a Fink Productions’ producer. King’s KIAF partner Julie Keck and Grimes’s wife Leigh Cavich-Grimes are executive producers. Travis Edwards is DP/editor.
Grimes also made the doc A Second Knock at the Door, about families of military service members who were killed by friendly fire.
NATHAN ADLOFF’s DRAMA Nate & Margaret, about the troubled friendship between a middle aged aspiring comic (Natalie West) and a newly dating young gay man (Tyler Ross) is out on DVD Aug. 28 from the film’s production company Breaking Glass Pictures. Adloff wrote the script with Justin D.M. Palmer and produced with Ash Christian. Conor McCahill and Gaby Hoffman costar.
NEW YORK FILMMAKER JUDITH HELFAND (Everything’s Cool) is making the documentary Cooked. It’s about the concentration in some neighborhoods of deaths from Chicago’s 1995 heat wave, and the general disparity in health conditions among communities separated by socioeconomic class, what she calls “survival by zip code.”
She’s also developing an interactive component to map community assets.
TEAMWORKS MEDIA’S ESPN DOCUMENTARY Goose, about Harlem Globetrotter and pioneering sports entrepreneur Reece “Goose” Tatum, was released on DVD and digital download on Aug. 21.
TeamWorks is giving away DVDs of Goose, and their 2010 doc The Street Stops Here, about Bob Hurley, Sr. and the life changing impact of the basketball program he runs at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City.
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