Kickstarter

I uncovered a personal story which begins in Louisiana with my grandmother, Lucy Lemann, who was an outspoken environmentalist ... and was wealthy from oil. She befriended the first great American documentary filmmaker, Robert J. Flaherty, famous for his film "Nanook of the North." Flaherty was planning a film about oil in Louisiana -- paid for by the Standard Oil Company. Yes, Flaherty was just as passionate about protecting the environment, yet he was making a film that was intended to be a public relations rhapsody about drilling in the delicate environment of Louisiana. So, OIL IN THE FAMILY is a journey of self-discovery that runs headlong into the environmental crisis and our country's addiction to oil.

We have shot the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the oil industry, researched the Flaherty Archives ( Claremont College, CA) done numerous interviews with Peak oil experts, oil historians, family members who worked in the industry, the boy star of Louisiana Story now 75 and even the cinematographer of that film.

We need to complete the filming specifically:
• travel to the site of the original filming with the former child star and film that place from an airboat,
• integrate an animated element based on my graphic novel http://www.facebook.com/oilinthefamily
• and secure rights for Louisiana Story and still and music rights.. We have been raising money privately and through grants ( Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, e.g.)and are now actively pursuing crowd financing and incremental internet financing such as Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media http://media.gfem.org/node/10477

Everything we touch has a relationship to oil. As we enter into a transitional energy period what have we learned? The family in Oil in the Family is us – all of us in America and in the developed world. By looking at one family in particular, my own, we tell a story with a film that is both at peace and at war with itself. This was Louisiana Story … this is Oil in the Family.

http://oilfilms.com
http://goldmanarts.com
http://ggreendesign.com