Between a Stone and a Shrine is a cinematic experience featuring a gilded gold leaf casket airlifted over the city of Pittsburgh. In Braddock, PA, a group of people will be awaiting the casket’s arrival and lead it in a procession to a grave that I am digging in an abandoned lot.

My hope is that this gesture will resonate within the community to perpetuate positive action in Braddock’s revitalization efforts. Symbolically, placing this gilded casket underground acts as a seed to re-generate growth in urban communities. Helicopters used in mercy flights, news casting, war and surveillance create a sense of urgency; within my video, I am using the tensions of a helicopter to communicate the necessity of solidarity within the community. The monumental gesture with a golden casket alludes to an alchemical idea that death is a transition and not a finality. The event and final video will function as a social allegory that extracts layers of symbolism and mythology to provide a narrative of hope, preservation and transformation for post-industrial neighborhoods.

Within an urban context, art is a tool to promote awareness, provoke dialogue, and inspire action. My sculptural interventions is a critique of social perceptions of urban areas to prompt conversations about transience and growth within post-industrial environments. I am creating an avenue for engagement that instigates positive reflection and action within Braddock’s revitalization initiatives. The goal of my video, Between a Stone and a Shrine, is to permeate the local history and mythology by translating social tensions into narratives. The stories told by the participants and witnesses will, if passed on, persist and become a myth that survives the event itself.

Learn more about Between a Stone and a Shrine at oreencohen.com

Although I do not live there, my extended family is one of the many families that has lived in Bloomfield for the entire life. I have spent a lot of time in this neighborhood growing up, but I do not know much about it. I feel the history and culture of this neighborhood needs to be documented, so that generations will be able to see how Bloomfield has evolved into what it is today. This project will provide a strong emphasis on the voices of community members and their views of how the neighborhood has changed.

The first film was groundbreaking for Pittsburgh for it’s controversial and open approach to dialogue regarding race, class and gentrification. For some, the film was considered a bitter reminder of addressing the addressed and used as a tool in showing the different yet equal sides of true community redevelopment.

The film series stands alone for its unique and blunt way of tackling subjects considered taboo but necessary in understanding the nature of decision-making that affects many lives and consequences. The East of Liberty series is used as an educational tool today in most Pittsburgh area colleges and universities and has been acquired by many educational institutes nationwide.

Learn more about East of Liberty – Communities Without at eastofliberty.com

This film will offer intimate portraits of a variety of fursuiters, attempting to understand the person behind the costume. Some of the subjects interviewed include: Freya Fox – a single mother from Pittsburgh, Skye – a college student, and aspiring dancer, Boomer – a middle-aged loner who identifies more with sheep dogs than with other people, and Naki – a charismatic 27-year-old in a long distance relationship.

Every summer, Pittsburgh hosts the largest furry convention in the world, known as Anthrocon. Locals are familiar with the display of hundreds of furries in the street, but seldom do they look past their preconceived notions about the fandom. Other documentaries about furries focus on providing an easy answer for the phenomenon. But, Fursonas is more interested in taking a humanistic approach, allowing the subjects to speak for themselves, and the audience to decide for themselves.

The filmmakers plan to expand the short film Fursonas into a feature-length documentary, in order to fully realize the potential of the project.

Gabi’s Playdate Place is a carefully considered environment that addresses important aspects of children’s cognitive, emotional and physical development. It is a place where children are motivated by interesting objects and opportunities, but it is also a comforting place where children discover predictable routines and themes. Most important of all, through the recurring phrase “I Am Somebody,” Gabi and her friends emphasize over and over again the value, worth and dignity of each human being and the unique gifts that each person can develop and share. In a world where so many children are exposed to violence and neglect, this consistent message offers a hopeful alternative.

Learn more about Gabi’s Playdate Place at gabisplaydateplace.com

I started producing Gas Rush Stories in the spring of 2011. It was concerning to me to see how pro-drilling and anti-drilling people seemed to live in two very different and separate realities. On the other hand, so many people lacked awareness of this important issue. I wanted to create a forum where people who have been impacted by this industry in some way, good or bad, could share their personal views and experiences openly. Human stories have an amazing power to increase understanding and good will, and to connect people who have become alienated from one another.

The series has been praised for “an important contribution to the historical record of the ‘fracking’ controversy”, for it’s “human interest stories and fact-based presentation”, for it’s promotion of “people being able to draw their own more informed conclusions”, and for “documenting the impacts of the Pennsylvania shale gas extraction boom with a rare level of fairness and detail”.

GRS Roundtable is a 53 minute documentary based on the original Gas Rush Stories, a story about Pennsylvania, a state that chose to take the fast lane in the global race to tap the world’s shale gas reserves. How can the problems created by the rapid expansion of shale gas drilling industry be mitigated in Pennsylvania? Can other states and nations learn something from the mistakes made in Pennsylvania? According to  John Hoskyns-Abrahall, President of Bullfrog Films, Gas Rush Stories Roundtable would be the first documentary on shale gas drilling that aims at serving the greater good by reaching out to conflict mediators, social psychologists and economists.

Learn more about Gas Rush Stories at gasrushstories.com

For many young people in Pittsburgh under the age of 21, the enigmatic culture of bars, nightclubs, and performance venues had always been a curiosity. Pittsburgh had already produced several successful underground Punk bands in the late ‘70’s, and its music/bar culture was estimable. A new generation of young people however were ‘missing’ out on the scene, and looking for ways to connect, be part of the culture, the people, and most importantly, the music.

The film ‘Give Us a Chance: Pittsburgh Punk (working title)’ will detail individual experiences about how a vibrant, active culture rapidly expanded across the greater Pittsburgh area – bringing people from the region’s declining satellite cities and mill towns together to support their need, curiosity, and eventually, commitment to Punk music and the rising Pittsburgh Punk Rock scene. It will illustrate how the Punk community grew from modest beginnings involving a few dozen people at an all-ages show at a small venue on Oakland, to the hundreds that came together to vent their frustrations and confront an uncertain future, while building an enduring community culture of their own.

Nationally there has been an increasing interest and trend towards documenting and preserving the music of this era, however there has not been another project to look at the music as a part of the holistic picture of the history of a city and how it has been an indicator of the broader changes that were taking place.

The follow-up would explore the development and reconstruction of Historic Sites throughout the neighborhood. Places such as the Crawford Grill and the New Granada Theater, which are known for hosting artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstein and Dizzy Gillespie! The Theater is on the list of Pittsburgh’s Historic Landmarks and the National Register of Historic Places for its rich architectural past and significant role as a Movie Theater and Live Entertainment venue, while the Crawford Grill has been designated a Pennsylvania Historic Landmark for its similar enrollment.

Reconstruction of the two historic buildings would work as a physical representation of the artists’ voice in the rich history of this community, while asking the question: What role do the arts play in revitalization?

Learn more about The Granada Refrain at DrewNicholasFilm.com

Michael Lindström’s story is a journey. His job disappears in the recession. His sister, Anna, his closest and perhaps only real friend is transferred to Philadelphia when the hospital closes. Collapsing under the weight of the directionless time that the newly unemployed often have, he explores his environments with new curiosity. In the forests of south western Pennsylvania, nestled between post-industrial landscapes and beleaguered communities, he searches for something. Hopes for something. And in fact, there is something there. Just what that something is will change him forever.

A nod to our Scandinavian heritage, the natural world in The House of God is both a rich source of life and terrible force. With inspirations from Nordic folktales to contemporary writings like Halldór Laxness’ Independent People, we examine the natural world without simplification or glamorization. It is pure in a way, unfettered by our designs, our successes or failures but that purity is not to be confused with gentility. This world demands respect and to ignore its demands is to live in peril. Yet, pushed onward by his dislocation and apparent lack of meaningful alternatives, Michael is determined to discover its truths.

Learn more about The House of God at ambulantic.com

The pilot episode of the series is Giovannitti House, about a residence on Woodland Road near the Chatham University campus. This house was designed by the now-­‐famous architect Richard Meier in 1979. Its unusual, modernist cubical design created great controversy at the time, but has since been recognized as a landmark of modern residential design.

The aim of the series is to immerse viewers in the living spaces depicted in each episode. For this reason, interviews with the house owners (in this case Frank Giovannitti and his wife Colleen Hess) are conducted in the context of their daily lives. A filmmaker (Will Zavala in this case) is introduced as a guest visiting the Giovannitti family. While they are talking about the house, Frank gives Will a detailed tour around the house.

Learn more about House Stories: Giovannitti House at giovannittihouse.blogspot.com

The filmmaker’s ultimate vision is that the film – which will match 5 mentors with 5 youths – will be the launch pad for the HUG Project to be continued with a partnering youth advocacy program as an ongoing and continuing project. Project lead and producer Kerra Penn believes that the film could have a powerful effect on Pittsburgh residents of multi-generations and backgrounds to learn that, although the challenges of today and the past may have come in different forms, that overcoming these challenges must come from within and there is no better way to learn this than to learn this lesson from someone who has already succeeded in doing so. The mentors will help the youths by sharing their hard-earned wisdom and the mentors will be helped by the youths as they share their knowledge of modern technology and teach them how to use the internet and social media to overcome the “technical isolation” that many (who were not “born with a computer in their hands”) experience in today’s high-tech world.

Learn more about The HUG Project – Helping Us Grow at thehugprojectfilm.com

Over the past five years, the Pennsylvania Resources Council (PRC) has shaped and led a program to develop our region (Southwest PA)’s composting infrastructure in ways that have the greatest potential benefit to our natural environment and to our employment. A ‘composting infrastructure’ means all the relationships among waste-generators, haulers, composters and compost users.

We find a discord between Pittsburgh’s diversity and diversity in Pittsburgh’s arts community. This impacts not only Pittsburgh’s young creative people and their impression of what they can accomplish, but also the nation’s and world’s view of Pittsburgh as a genuine home of a diverse arts community. For the film, we have selected a pretty inclusive and diverse community of artists to address how artists cross lines geographically, culturally and creatively. Our hope is that this film can be used as a tool for these artists and venues to promote themselves, as well as for the city and beyond to see what is happening here and encourage them to support and nurture it.

Learn more about Kill The Artist at alishabwormsley.com

We want to create real content about life, health, and happiness mixed with light-hearted humor and a can-do attitude that engages viewers. We want to present these hard to swallow topics in the form of a fun, thought-provoking and easily digestible web series. We’re setting out to tackle the deep questions about life, health and happiness from health book authors, punk rockers, and everyone in-between.

The purpose of the show is to create content that matters and to help shift viewers perception of themselves, their communities, and the world they live in on a show-to-show basis. We want to find out how people living their personal freedom in every kind of way are making positive changes in their lives and how that change is transferred to the communities they live in and in turn, the world. We hope to show that simple health shifts, kindness and positivity can make a difference in our communities and we hope to inspire our viewers to be a part of it.

Our inspiration comes from the fact that despite our very different lives, we share a strong belief in the value of personal freedom in health and well-being that stems further than just kale and self-help books. Jon is an adventurer who travels most of the time with just a camera and a pair of clothes, while Lindsey spends her time drinking organic herbal teas and writing books. Living free and happy lives may take very different forms for each of us, but what we more importantly have in common is a desire to help others create positive change in their lives. We believe that these positive personal health and lifestyle changes, big and small, are what create a ripple effect that can transform people, communities, and the world.

Learn more about Life Over Easy at foodmoodgirl.com and zirtlifestyle.com

The mission of 4TWELVE PICTURES is to tell the stories of real life superheroes in the Pittsburgh medical community and the people they save through powerful, in depth storytelling and visually stunning imagery. The “Life’s Work” docuseries follows a team of doctors at UPMC Children’s Hospital who, after over 30 years of searching, have found what they believe to be a cure for juvenile diabetes, also known as Type 1 diabetes. The series will tell the story of their journey and the children they hope to cure.

This docuseries will capture a major scientific breakthrough in the making. Dr. Massimo Trucco (from Genoa, Italy), Dr. David Finegold (a lifetime Pittsburgher), and a team of the brightest minds in the field of diabetes, are beginning the final round of FDA human trials for an innovative new therapy –  a therapy that was created and tested here in Pittsburgh at UPMC Children’s Hospital. They believe this is the cure, and so do many of the biggest names in diabetes research. Names like James R. Gavin III, former president of the American Diabetes Association and Alan Lewis, PhD, former President and CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

As much as the world needs this cure, we need this docuseries. We can learn from the process of bringing a groundbreaking idea to fruition, from its successes, as well as the obstacles encountered along the way. Our mission is to illustrate a message of hope to a world that needs it more than ever. We hear so much about the bad in humanity it is easy to forget that there are people out there still fighting for the greater good. Regardless of the success of this cure, these real life super heroes deserve to have their stories told.

Learn more about Life’s Work at wecancurethis.com

This is a story waiting to be told before all traces of its existence totally disappear.  By rescuing this history, we insure that the stories recorded of cultural and historical significance are preserved.  This story has to be told.  If not now, when?

Cultural and historical significance will be depicted for all those interested in Jewish history and for generations of decedents from this community.  All aspects of the documentary can be a tool in classrooms, history centers and in Jewish organizations.  Its distribution would go to Pittsburghers throughout the country.

Growing up, local women’s rights activist and filmmaker Heather Arnet’s grandmother, Vivian (now age 97), regaled her with stories. Her favorites were of her great grandmother, Mary, the suffragette who marched for decades for women to earn the right to vote. “You must vote in every election – large and small,” Vivian would say, “because other women fought and died for you to have that right.”  Vivian’s secret dream – passed down from her mother – was to someday help elect the first woman president. In her lifetime, fifty women would run for President of the United States. None of them successfully.

Inspired by her grandmother’s story, and the girls she serves everyday in the Pittsburgh region, Arnet traveled to Brazil in 2013 to interview women from different regions and socio economic backgrounds asking them to share their stories of how in the span of a single generation, this dynamic and beautiful country, went from historic poverty to historic riches; from rape in the streets to a woman in the Presidential palace. The resulting one-hour documentary will debut in March 2014 on Pittsburgh’s own WQED Multimedia, and at the Carnegie Museum of Art in the final month of its “International” exhibit. The film will then tour college campuses, community centers, middle and high schools, and other screening venues throughout PA, the U.S., and Brazil.

Learn more about Madame Presidenta: Why Not U.S.? at vamosmeninas.com

This project is aimed at children of all ages in the region and will be part of the on-­going broadcasts of our programs which air as specials on WQED.

This project will be implemented by working with art students from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and other local universities. We will use all social media outlets to build awareness of the project, as well as our own website.

Our team includes two established professionals in the city media scene: Caleb Sawyer as lead animator, and Dino Distefano as lead sound designer.

Humans have reached beyond Earth. Mars is now ours, serving as a second home. With initial challenges in the past, the excitement of exploration is gone. Mars is just another place, a few days ride from your local spaceport. A group of twenty-something Martians struggle to define themselves in this new world. Alex has just been dumped, again. Emily tries to make ends meet, while still finding meaning in her work. Emile and Tony negotiate life as independent artists in the Martian city of Meridian. All are trying to find a place in their world. Could the appearance of a mysterious stranger open the door to something new on this seemingly dead planet?

Martians is a dramatic, sometimes comic, often surreal sci-fi web series. After a screening of the full series at a theatre in Pittsburgh, Martians will be released online through vimeo.com in five, eight-minute episodes. Martians comes from the experiences of a young person in established LGBT communities. Identifying as queer within (and outside of) this context has the very odd feeling of being an outcast on a foreign planet. It’s a combination of the completely extraordinary and the completely mundane. Martians seeks to give shape to a growing sense of detachment that many young people feel from the broader LGBT movement, as it continues to exclude stories in the interest of acceptability.

Learn more about Martians at paulwkruse.com

The title, Ongoing Box, refers to the idea that each action or development an artist makes expands their “box” – their approach, their framework, their history. By documenting these approaches, one goal is to expand a community’s understanding of the artistic environment they are living in.

The film will serve multiple purposes: 1) Pittsburgh is undergoing another vibrant period of experimentation and engagement in the arts. This film will present a snapshot of in-progress works, artist techniques, and commentary on the conditions of the artist in Pittsburgh. 2) Much of art appreciation comes upon viewing the end result: a gallery installation, a finished film, a dance presentation, and a served meal. Ongoing Box will show the behind-the-scenes world of the artist – the excitement of discovery, the monotony, the patience, the self-doubt, the reward. 3) The film, while focusing on artists in the community, will also extend the framework of the documentary film to show the progress of creating the film within the film through reprojection techniques, multiple edits, and self-reference.

Learn more about Ongoing Box at davidbernabo.com

Inspired by 2014 as the landmark year for three different opera companies, we will create a documentary film showcasing Pittsburgh’s Opera history, spotlighting the some of the unique individuals currently innovating in the Pittsburgh Opera “scene,” and educate viewers about the interesting and demanding Opera subculture that only exists here in Pittsburgh.

The documentary film will be packaged for viewing at festivals to promote the regional operatic arts community Many of these individual companies have their own promotional materials, but until now, there has been no composite that best captures the larger picture of Pittsburgh’s opera community. Inspired by 2014 as the landmark year for three different opera companies, Additionally, each company who participates will be gifted a copy of the raw footage of their contribution that they may use for their own promotional purposes.

Through my work producing and editing documentary projects at Argentine Productions, our focus on telling real-life stories led me to look closer to home for inspiration. In the last few years living in Pittsburgh I’ve met many interesting people from all over town, and decided that I wanted to investigate their stories. This is a project that I’m personally invested in and that I know others will enjoy watching.

Learn more about People of Pittsburgh at argentineproductions.com

I have witnessed and participated in many community-building initiatives in the city of Pittsburgh and throughout my residential neighborhood, Garfield. From municipal clean-ups to neighborhood watches, dinner parties to community festivals, many people are stepping up to actualize a safer and more beautiful place to live and raise their families. “Restroom” is another contribution to these efforts towards communality.  Going to the movie theatre to see the latest works from artists (local or non-local) is in itself a communal experience. The only thing that differentiates this project from similar initiatives is the content and style of the film.

Next year, three major projects—a biography (Robert Qualters: Autobiographical Mythologies by Vicky A. Clark, PhD to be published by The University of Pittsburgh Press), film, and retrospective—will highlight the mills, neighborhood corners, streetscapes, bridges, falling leaves, and red skies that have saturated the Qualters catalogue for nearly half a century. It is a three‐pronged effort to help secure the legacy of a local treasure in the broader pantheon of Pittsburgh’s long record of artistic achievement and promote Qualters, who turns 80 in 2014, to a wider audience.

This 30–35 minute cinematic narrative, directed by local filmmakers Joe and Elizabeth Seamans and produced by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, will reveal Robert Qualters—his life and his work—to the public through the immediacy of the moving image.

This short documentary introduces us to three farms– Garfield Community Farm, Braddock Farm and Hazelwood Food Forest–that are working to feed their neighborhoods, improve spoiled soil, and build community. Small farms, says New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, are key to solving the hunger problem on multiple scales. Smallholder farms introduce innovations that result in efficiencies that industrial farming has not been able to achieve.

These three farms not only demonstrate the breadth of positive impact that small farms can have within the area it serves but also, as a collective, how Pittsburgh is leading the way in harnessing farms as catalysts for broad change. Pittsburgh is one of a few cities that has the open urban space and the creative talent to restore unused land to tangible productivity.

What is unique about this project is that there are no films that document the range of urban farming practices that the three farms employ and their individual and collective impact. We’re inspired by this project because it highlights agricultural innovation that modern urban policy recognizes as one of the keys to economic development. The project raises awareness for the lead that Pittsburgh is taking in urban farming innovation – something that has not received the same coverage as leads the city has taken on technology, medicine, life science and even the arts.

The inspiration for this film stems from an appreciation for the strength of character of individuals on both sides of the conflict, including the rags-to-riches robber barons of the Gilded Age, like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, and the blue-collar champions of the workers, like strike leader Hugh O’Donnell. We wish to remind audiences of the heroism embedded in the nameless Pittsburgh steelworkers whose backbreaking work shaped our country westward and skyward.By presenting the story as a dramatic film with high production quality, we aim to prompt an important dialogue on the relationship between capital and labor.

Learn more about Steel Town at steeltownfilm.com

Set into a more culturally rich context and layered with themes that detail the lives of artists and their environments, Still City is the result of documenting people and places from another side of Pittsburgh.  The story revolves around two major themes, the artists and the environment. The artists, consisting of mostly musicians and performers of all ages, races, and interests, are the main characters and narrators of the film. The second theme, the environment, interlaces with the story of the artists by allowing the audience to view Pittsburgh’s diverse and changing landscape and how this influences the way artists are creative. Within this theme is the concept of the “cyclic nature” of Pittsburgh. It is represented through the 4 seasons, visually capturing the intense heat of summers, transitions of fall, the barren and hibernation state of winter, and the replenish and healing effect of spring.

The view from the service entrance, not unexpectedly, is quite a bit different. It is a view of growing wage inequality, in step with national trends. This trend is particularly hardest on low-wage workers, who struggle to keep pace, and have little to no chance of improving their lot in the employment market.

I am reminded of Dickens’ opening lines in A Tale Of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

In an attempt to put faces on the stories that get relegated to the margins of the Business pages, the documentary film will focus on the Adjunct Faculty Association’s organization effort at Duquesne University and other higher ed institutions in the region, and UPMC’s campaign against its own workers attempts to unionize. The film will examine real-world issues, avoid the abstract and place the struggle into a historical context.

Through access to people who wish to tell a different story, I hope to do so in a manner that will start a meaningful conversation in our community about shared struggles and what might be done about the widening disparity in our “two cities.”

Learn more about Tale of Two Cities at johnricefilms.com

Through observation and interviews, “Tar Baby Jane” reveals how Vanessa is constructing her own identity as an artist and woman as she pieces together and gives life to the tar babies, poems and performances that define, shape and reveal her life. Vanessa’s work is profoundly insightful in its confrontation with America’s legacy of white supremacy, black iconography, hatred, fear and brutality while tenderly demonstrating our connectedness to the past and each other. Ultimately, Vanessa’s story serves as an inspiration for people who find themselves in similar situations, fighting similar demons.

Learn more about Tar Baby Jane at tarbabyjane.com

As newspaper readership has declined, and the media landscape has been shaken up in recent years, offering new opportunities for trying innovative approaches, we’ve studied many new models of journalism around the country and found inspiration for this project. Uptown Stories will look to engage residents in different ways, organizing events at the deaf social club, Jubilee Soup Kitchen service center for the poor, at an Uptown Community Garden, and the Paramount Theater space being redeveloped in Uptown.

As well as looking at the issues already getting press here, the project will give a more balanced and nuanced portrayal of life in Uptown. And we’re really breaking new ground-­-­other recent video projects have focused on justifying funding into the area. Uptown Stories is an effort to explain the state of a diverse community in transition through the stories and life of the people who make up the neighborhood.

Learn more about Uptown Stories at unabridgedpress.com

The project will use eye-catching animation and an exciting, quick-paced editing style to capture the minds and hearts of viewers. Similar animated storytelling projects, such as NPR’s StoryCorps, have found great success online and in the short film community in the past few years, but none of these projects have the local outreach or community impact built into them like this series. Pittsburgh has a lot of stories to tell. If we had the resources, we could do all 300,000 residents. As it stands, 10 short films is a good place to start.

Learn more about What’s Your Favorite Thing About Pittsburgh at julianglander.com

In 2014 Confluence Productions will launch another installment of the Future Filmmaker’s Initiative aimed at highlighting the healing power of music. Working with talented young filmmakers, Con Pro Films will create a documentary and coinciding community action event to focus on the positive impact music as a therapeutic tool to mourners, patients, veterans and practitioners of song.

With the support of the Sprout Fund, Confluence Productions and the Future Filmmaker’s Initiative, focused on the heart of personal stories, will bring much needed attention to the stories of those impacted by the healing power of music and the organizations resurrecting the positive emotions often degraded by traumatic experiences.