The Amerikans began as a locally rooted experiment in collaborative storytelling, created between 2011 and 2013 for community audiences, mainly in Northeast Ohio, and the web. Filmed in small towns and rural areas of Ohio, each short documentary was co-authored with its subject, who shared not only their biography but also their dreams, memories, and inner lives. As a collaborative trio, myself (director), producer Jefferey Pence, and cinematographer and Micha Hilliard committed to a radical form of partnership: subjects were equal collaborators, received final cut, and hosted a public screening for their own communities. While the series forms a coherent whole - beginning with a cowboy and ending with a Native American - each episode was formally unique, often blending documentary and staged re-enactment. This approach transformed the everyday lives of the people we worked with into something mythic and timeless, reframing the local as universal and suggesting that individuality and shared humanity are not opposites, but inseparable. Looking back on this project, and acknowledging that several of the Amerikans have since passed - Parnell Necklace, Don Downs, Ethel Moyers, and likely Sim Graham, who disappeared from our lives - I recognize it as the most honest and genuine relationship-based project I have been part of. It remains a rare experience of trust, shared authorship, and care, and one for which I feel deeply grateful.
Watch all 15 episodes of The Amerikans on YouTube.