The District of Columbia Office of Motion Picture and Television Development (MPTD) is pleased to honor Ellie Walton, award-winning documentary filmmaker, as the December 2013 Filmmaker of the Month. She has committed her life’s work to sharing stories that inspire connection across social and cultural dividing lines. Since 2006, Ellie Walton has directed and produced documentaries with communities across her hometown: public housing residents fighting displacement (Chocolate City, 2007), day laborers searching for the American Dream in a Home Depot parking lot (Igual Que Tú, 2009), and theatre artists imagining change in schools and prisons (Walk With Me, 2012).
Key to Ellie’s process is the deep engagement with the community, as she takes time to build relationships and trust with people, actively involving them within the storytelling process. This participatory method draws from her ongoing experience facilitating media education workshops with communities across the District. For the past two years she worked at Meridian Hill Pictures, a DC based documentary production company that is committed to working with communities to co-create honest stories that assign new value to each individual’s unique perspective and voice. Meridian Hill Pictures co-founder Lance Kramer was recognized as the December 2012 Filmmaker of the Month.
Ellie’s participatory approach to filmmaking has been recognized by the Humanities Council of Washington DC, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. She also is the recipient of the 2011 Mayor’s Arts Award, the highest honor given to an individual artist in Washington, DC.
Today, Ellie is working on the completion and distribution of her two most recent DC based feature documentaries, set for release in 2014. Fly By Light, produced by One Common Unity in association with Meridian Hill Pictures, follows fifteen DC youth into the mountains of West Virginia on an eight-day journey to rewrite their futures. Voices From Within, co-produced by Video Diary Productions and Meridian Hill Pictures, explores the complicated process of recovery and redemption through the eyes of four individuals in care at Saint Elizabeths psychiatric hospital. The film premiered last month at screenings held at Saint Elizabeths Hospital and the Goethe Institute in DC.
Ellie is currently working on a participatory film project in Gujarat, India, leading a digital storytelling residency with teenage girls who dropped out of school and are now trying to overcome social barriers to get back in education. An aspect of her project will connect teenage girls who dropped out of school in India with teenage girls who have dropped out of school in DC. She will return in the spring to her home in Ward 1 of the District of Columbia.
MPTD launched the Filmmaker of the Month initiative to feature a District-based filmmaker who exemplifies the vast amount of talent and creativity based here in the nation’s capital. The Filmmaker of the Month initiative is part of its mission to elevate the national and international profile of the city’s most talented filmmakers. Previous filmmakers honored include Doubleback Productions founder Adrena Ifill; award-winning writer and director of Vivian, Aimee Dixon; Ben Crosbie, award-winning documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Eidolon Films; and May 3rd Films Founder Kirk Fraser.
You can visit the Filmmaker of the Month section to learn more about Ellie and previous Filmmaker of the Month recipients.