A film about an Atlanta lesbian couple fighting to save nature in their gentrifying neighborhood and living life on their own terms.
Hi, thanks for looking at my campaign. This is my second time here at Kickstarter, my first film “Feminist: Stories From Women’s Liberation” was successfully funded and has a film distributor. My new film takes place in Atlanta, Georgia.
This film is about two women named Teri and Iris.
Do we still have individual power over our lives and our communities?
Are our communities being short-changed under the weight and power of developers and corporations?
These two Atlanta women, Teri and Iris, are the subject of this film because their lives intersect two things: the power of maintaining control over our lives and our communities with the ever increasing reach of real estate developers and corporations. The film is about Teri and Iris personally and the events that are taking place in our changing country; gentrification, overdevelopment, the power of corporations, and even current pressures on our democracy.
Teri and Iris’s lives are a window on a new (or old) way of doing things and succeeding. From the Civil Rights Movement to the Women’s Liberation Movement to the Gay Rights movement Teri and Iris were there and involved.
They are still living the same lives they led before the internet revolution. Their home looks largely the same as it did in the early 1980s when I first met them. They shop at local stores, have no email, no computer, yet they are far more involved in their community than people I know who are fully online.
This film is Teri and Iris’s story. It is about living life on our own terms and maintaining a connection to our natural environment even in our cities.
It’s an American story about them and about us.
The Gordon Green Space and The Gordon Family
At the corner of Teri and Iris’s street was a one half acre green space that has been owned by many different developers. Teri and many of the neighbors were determined to keep the lot as a natural green space (this lot was home to a historic pecan tree named Granmaw Gordon) and as a refuge for wildlife. The land is now being developed by the 7th developer in a series of developers whom many of the neighbors, led by Teri, have fought off with local activism and multiple trips to court. Although the developers have progressed since this picture was taken, the fight is still on because the fight is always on.
Teri’s fight to save the famous pecan tree is a dramatic story that started over ten years ago and was covered in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Decatur Metro, The Clarion, and Creative Loafing.
The Gordon Green Space and The Gordon Family
The green space was part of a southern estate with an interesting story about two families; one white, one black, and both named Gordon. It’s a story about slavery, freedom and the Civil War.
The Gordon land is now a hot spot for the latest condominium development. Gentrification not only contributes to rising rents and home prices, it can erase what is left of our natural spaces. Sadly, at the corner of Dekalb and Gordon, the developers have advanced.
I see the fight to save the green space as a metaphor for our struggle to save other things in our country that seem to be vanishing; our connection to nature and our American past.
A Mom and Mom Shop
Teri and Iris also struggled to preserve their own small business when the historic strip of stores in which they were renting was sold. Prior to this change of ownership the influx of big box stores had already been taking a toll on their small business. The gentrification of the neighborhood and the increase in internet businesses made having a small ‘brick and mortar’ business much harder.
There is a silver lining because although things seem difficult and we may feel powerless we can still be in control of a changing country. We are still “the people.” It isn’t written anywhere that developers and huge corporations with boatloads of money have to rule our lives. Our communities (and our country) can be what we want them to be. And this is why the Teri and Iris story is important. Teri and Iris don’t capitulate, they never quit. They persist.
The Teri and Iris film needs you
I have been working on this film for over two years and have shot hours and hours of footage. I have a fine edit. I am consulting with crew members and getting ready for post production. The funds raised through Kickstarter will finish the film for film festivals and theaters.
My budget to finish the film is $30,000 and this will pay for editorial consultation, sound editing, color timing, and music composition. I plan on finishing the film January 2018.
Partners
I am directing and editing The Teri & Iris Film as I did my last film, “Feminist: Stories from Women’s Liberation.”
Kickstarter funds will be used to pay for all post production costs including, music composition, sound editing, color timing and editorial consultation.
Why Kickstarter?
My last Kickstarter campaign was for finishing funds for my last film “Feminist: Stories from Women’s Liberation.” That Kickstarter campaign was necessary for the completion of Feminist Stories. In fact,”Feminist: Stories from Women’s Liberation” is now distributed by Women Make Movies. Thank you Kickstarter supporters for that successful campaign!
After it won Best of the Fest for Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival in 2013 I screened it nationally for several years in festivals, conferences, schools and universities, including the Feminism in London Conference and The British Library. I was also invited to screen it as a guest of the Critical Thinking Forum of the International Islamic University, Islamabad in Pakistan. I got to know many of the women at the university.
I was a U.S. State Department coordinator for eight of the Islamabad academics to visit Los Angeles in summer of 2016. Here in LA we had many discussions and one was about our environment at Cottonwood Canyon in Pasadena. It is a wild piece of land in the city and that is in the middle of a fight to have it preserved as green space.
I was invited back to Pakistan to be a keynote speaker at the Women and the Environment conference in December of 2016. I screened a few short raw clips from The Deep Green Gardens of Gordon Avenue for the conference. The students tweeted during the screening of these clips:
The Teri and Iris film needs you!
Support the film! The funds raised here (Kickstarter is all or nothing) will enable us to finish the film. Any amount helps, it really does. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Spread the word! Letting friends and family know about the film helps so much. If you are a blogger or have a podcast give us a call and let’s chat! Jenniferhalllee@gmail.com
Share the link! Send it to all your friends.
Share the photos! Unique photos below can be a great Instagram for your friends and adding the link really helps the film!
Thank you!
Jennifer
Some Stills from the film for Instagram and Twitter!
Hand designed and hand letter pressed by the director.
Unique tea towels will bring the women’s liberation movement into your home. I designed these towels to help people pass down the stories to the next generations. Fun and unique and perfect for your home.
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There are always risks with making an independent film, however I have a track record on finishing films and making them as great as they can be. I raised funds for my last film here at Kickstarter, Feminist: Stories from Women’s Liberation, and that film is still being screened around the world and has a distributor, Women Make Movies.
If there is a setback with the Teri and Iris film I will notify all my Kickstarter backers and keep them posted on the completion of the film. Thank you!