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SXSW Veteran Directors, Part One

SXSW Veteran Directors, Part One

Spotlighting new films by established directors

Mar 06, 2025
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SXSW Veteran Directors, Part One
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Grace Lee, Patty Ahn, Robert Stone, Kahane Corn Cooperman, Elaine Epstein

The 2025 SXSW Film Festival gallops into Austin on Friday. Last week, I featured five films with directorial debuts, now we spotlight veteran directors with films premiering at the festival, featuring:

  • Creede U.S.A. directed by Kahane Corn Cooperman

  • Arrest The Midwife directed by Elaine Epstein

  • Starman directed by Robert Stone

  • Forever We Are Young co-directed by Grace Lee & Patty Ahn

I asked what spurred them to take up the reins on their latest projects and how they overcame bumps in the road to drive these stories to fruition.

Still from Forever We Are Young co-directed by Grace Lee & Patty Ahn

Stay tuned for more insights later in the week when we’ll hear about:

  • The Tallest Dwarf directed by Julie Forrest Wyman

  • Assembly co-directed by Johnny Symons and Rashaad Newsome

  • Baby Doe directed by Jessica Earnshaw

  • Uvalde Mom directed by Anayansi Prado

If you’ll be in Austin, say howdy!

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For those staying put at the ranch this weekend, check out the Pure Nonfiction curation of films on Jolt, where you can watch The Bibi Files, Gaucho Gaucho, Zurawski v. Texas, Hollywoodgate for only $5 per film.

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Creede is a tiny, remote, mining town where residents hold tightly to their heritage. When the townspeople brought in a theater company in 1966 to bolster the dwindling economy, they opened its doors to all manner of folk and progressive ideas. This is not quite what they had intended. Almost 60 years later, with these two worlds living side by side, Creede is a taut microcosm of current national divisions.

My motivations for telling this story:

I first learned of Creede, CO through a New York Times article about the Creede Repertory Theatre. As a former theater nerd, the details about this company’s long history in a tiny old mining town mesmerized me. But what particularly piqued my curiosity was that Creede Rep’s home was in a conservative town where the values of this progressive company and those of many residents and theater-goers seemed unaligned. This was August of 2021 and I was starting to question the value of living in my comfortable bubble of like-minded people, tiring of my own echo chamber. How did this town called Creede even work? I could barely imagine it.

I flew 5 hours, drove another 5, and found myself in one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen, completely out of my bubble, often out of my comfort zone, and utterly enthralled. Creede is a stunning microcosm of our nation’s current chasm where miners, longtimers, and conservatives hold tightly to tradition and heritage while theater folks bring the arts, outsiders, and progressive ideas to town. Yet, instead of retreating into safe corners, people here must engage with each other for the sake of their community.

It seemed like the right time to explore this place where its unexpectedly nuanced residents test their tiny democracy in ways large and small. I am so grateful for the opportunity to share Creede’s story as an example of the necessity of engagement across differences for survival. Talking with each other shouldn’t be novel, but it is. And now in 2025, it feels crucial.

Biggest challenges and achievements:

My first few trips to Creede, CO were by myself. It’s a place that’s not really on the way to anywhere, you really have to want to get there – all in, it takes me about 14 hours. For perspective, this was late 2021 and these were my first flights since the Covid pandemic began. I had been wearing a mask outside of my home for over a year. I didn’t know anyone who had voted differently than me. So I started my Creede exploration with what was most familiar to me - the theater. And then one person introduced me to the next, and that person would introduce me to another. And soon I was meeting all kinds of people. Admittedly, I was apprehensive at first but in short order, our conversations began to erode my preconceptions and assumptions. For me personally, this was monumental. For the film, the seeds were being planted.

By July 4th 2022, we were on our second shoot - first filming the town's parade and then immediately ping-ponging between the Days of ‘92 Mining Competition on one side of Main St and the Creede Repertory Theater performances on the other. That filmmaker’s dream-of-a-day visually encapsulated the two worlds that exist in Creede. However, I was really not sure how we were going to illustrate the thing we found most inspiring about this town – how these worlds engage with each other. Fortunately, a powerful opportunity presented itself with a series of Board of Education meetings, giving us a crucial throughline.

I hope that Creede U.S.A. prompts viewers to ask themselves some of the same questions that making the film prompted in me. And I hope it leaves them with the same sense of hope.

Creede U.S.A. premieres at SXSW Film & TV Theater @ The Hyatt Regency on Mar 9 at 9:00pm

More info and screening times

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