Christopher Kyle Walker, a Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ film graduate whose latest\u00a0documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and played this week at the Florida Film Festival in Maitland, will be part of an invited filmmakers\u2019 panel Thursday.<\/p>\n
Walker will be part of the panel \u201cMaking Meaning: Films that Change the World\u201d at 11 a.m. at Enzian Theater, 1300 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland.<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s film, \u201cWelcome to Leith,\u201d is about a small North Dakota town that confronts a white supremacist who moves in and plots a takeover of city government, setting up a town struggling for sovereignty against one man’s extremist vision. After Craig Cobb moved to Leith in 2012 and started buying up property, his behavior became more threatening and tensions soared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe read about the story in The New York Times when the story broke,\u201d said Walker, who now lives in New York. \u201cOn the surface we thought it\u00a0was\u00a0kind\u00a0of an\u00a0incredible\u00a0story, a real life western in a way.\u00a0As we dug\u00a0deeper\u00a0we realized this little town in North Dakota was going through a pretty severe test of democracy,\u00a0bringing\u00a0up questions such as: How far should the First Amendment go in protecting all\u00a0speech?\u00a0Who has the right to control a community?\u00a0How does a free society deal\u00a0with\u00a0unpopular ideas?\u201d<\/p>\n
Walker and co-director Michael Beach Nichols began documenting the story in November 2013 and the film premiered this past January. \u201cWelcome to Leith\u201d was one of 45 feature documentaries screened at Sundance from the 12,166 films submitted and 184 accepted. The 86-minute film was listed as one of Rolling Stones\u2019 25 must-see movies at this year\u2019s Sundance festival.<\/p>\n
Despite the high tensions during the filming in Leith, Walker said he didn\u2019t feel threatened.
\n\u201cWe made it clear that we were there to cover both sides of the story, letting everyone speak for themselves \u2014 and everyone\u00a0understood\u00a0this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Walker said most of his time at Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ was spent thinking that he wanted to direct fiction films. But once he discovered associate film professor Lisa Mills\u2019 documentary workshop class, he said everything seemed to click for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that my personality\u00a0and\u00a0stories I wished to tell were better suited for the documentary format,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After receiving his bachelor\u2019s in cinema studies, Walker moved to New York and began editing documentaries that have aired on HBO.\u00a0He has edited and produced Emmy-nominated and duPont-winning feature and short documentaries. He is now co-president of his own production company, and \u201cWelcome to Leith\u201d is his directorial debut.<\/p>\n
His advice for Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ student filmmakers is just \u201cgo out with a camera and make\u00a0something. There is no excuse not to. Cameras are cheap, editing software is cheap.\u00a0Take risks with your work and don’t be afraid to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Kyle Walker, a Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ film graduate whose latest\u00a0documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and played this week at the Florida Film Festival in Maitland, will be part of an invited filmmakers\u2019 panel Thursday. Walker will be part of the panel \u201cMaking Meaning: Films that Change the World\u201d at 11 a.m. at Enzian Theater, 1300 S. Orlando…","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":65633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2857],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-65631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-lisa-mills"],"yoast_head":"\n