The Public Record | producer

“In spring 2020, as the world entered lockdown, a team of filmmakers invited over 60 residents of Louisville, KY to use their smartphones to record their everyday lives. In a time of polarization and isolation, this was collaboration on a city-wide scale. The most private of moments weaved together with striking imagery to tell the intimate story of a city, and a country, at breaking point.

Late in the film, one of the participants describes the pandemic as “the great magnifier” of economic and racial disparity in America. If the pandemic is a magnifier, then The Public Record is a microscope that offers an emotional portrait of how this moment feels – for a front-line nurse, a high school graduate, an elderly couple, an activist, a teacher, and many more.

As the lockdown gives way to public protests, The Public Record follows some of its participants out of their home and into the streets to discover that it is in moments of crisis that we become politically activated. A timely testimony of Americans’ personal and political lives, this is the record of today, told by the public.”

KERTIS, a creative agency in Louisville, Kentucky, brought this project to life. The full film is available to stream here.

Directors: Ben Freedman, Chelsae Ketchum

Producers: Dave Weatherwax, Mackenzie Houston, Ben Freedman

Graphic Design: Andres Orrego