Amidst the uprising in Ferguson, 7 St. Louis college students evolve into advocates and activists as they demand change through policy and protest.
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View the trailer
Characters
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Brittany Ferrell
Brittany Ferrell is a St. Louis native and alumna of University of Missouri - St. Louis. Ferrell currently works as a Labor and Delivery nurse and has a passion for providing healthcare services and education. Ferrell dedicated time and passion to the Ferguson Uprising which was a spark for what is now known as the Black Lives Matter Movement. She has organized several protest and radical actions calling people with innate privilege and power to speak up about the inequities and inequalities that exists for black people and people of color in St. Louis, MO. Moving forward, Ferrell remains committed to working for justice and equity for black communities and communities of color in the best way she knows how. As an aspiring Family Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse Midwife, Ferrell is planning to apply for a dual degree graduate program for the Fall of 2018 year.
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Karina Arango
Karina Arango is a proud first-generation college student who graduated from Fontbonne University in 2015, where she was awarded by the President for her advocacy work and the only undergraduate hooded for her service. As the daughter of a mother who once was undocumented, Karina is passionate about immigration reform and educational opportunities for Latino youth. She has advocated throughout Missouri on the importance of equal access to postsecondary opportunities for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and undocumented students. Karina currently works in St. Louis, Missouri in Ritenour School District as a Teacher’s Assistant in the district’s International Welcome Center for immigrant students.
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Robert Elam
Robert Elam accepted roles as Education Policy Intern and Student Advisor with The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis in 2014. Before joining the Foundation, he worked at St. Louis County Human Services as a Youth Services Specialist. An active community volunteer, Robert spends his spare time providing guidance in life planning, employment, and postsecondary education to young people. Robert attended the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he earned a Bachelor of Social Work, and completed his MSW in 2016.
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Karissa Anderson
Karissa Anderson is Manager of Advocacy and Policy Research with The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis and St. Louis Graduates. She manages the education policy intern program and coordinates the Active Advocacy Coalition. Karissa graduated May 2015 with a Masters in Social Work from Saint Louis University and from Southeast Missouri State University in 2012 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Communication. She works on policy issues that affect access to higher education – particularly around affordability for low-income, first-generation college students, undocumented students and students of color. Karissa sits on the Community Advisory Board and Policy Advisory board of the Deaconess Foundation. She has testified before numerous commissions and legislative bodies, and has authored a number of editorial pieces.
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Amber Overton
Amber Overton is a graduate of Saint Louis University with bachelor’s degrees in Social Work and Psychology and a 2015 graduate of the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University with a Master's in Social Work and specialization in Urban Education. Amber works as College Success Manager for Boys Hope Girls Hope International. Recently, she also provided management support to St. Louis Graduate’s High School to College Center, a summer drop-in site for students encountering challenges in the summer after high school graduation. As Senior Education Policy Intern for The Active Advocacy Coalition, Amber researched merit-based financial aid and how to make merit programs more equitable.
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Faith Sandler
Faith Sandler has served as Executive Director of The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis since 1989. From 2009-2015 she also served as founding co-chair of St. Louis Graduates (where she continues on the Steering Committee and is chair of advocacy). Prior to joining the Foundation, she was Executive Director of the Committee on Quality Education, appointed by the federal court to evaluate desegregation programs in non-integrated St. Louis Public Schools. In addition to her responsibilities at the Foundation, Faith has taught nonprofit ethics and accountability at Washington University and served on the board of directors of the Dan Broida/Sigma-Aldrich Scholarship Fund. She currently serves on the Research and Advocacy Advisory Committee of the National Scholarship Providers’ Association and the advisory board of University of Missouri-St. Louis Nonprofit Management and Leadership Program. Her bachelor’s degree is from Johnston College of the University of Redlands and her master’s in cultural anthropology is from Washington University. Faith received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2016.
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Derion Tabb
Derion Tabb grew up in St. Louis. After graduating high school in 2011 as a Business Major, Derion attended Webster University majoring in Public Relations. Ultimately, Derion transferred to the University of Missouri - St. Louis where he attained his Bachelor’s of Arts in Communication in May 2015. Derion worked with several well-known educational non-profit organizations in the region including: The St. Louis Public Schools Foundation, St. Louis Graduates, The Scholarship Foundation and Teach for America. He is currently a Teaching Fellow at Kipp Victory Academy. oes here
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Jocelyn Posos
Jocelyn Posos attended Missouri State University and graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in Social Work and Spanish. She is currently working at Saint Louis University as a Graduate Assistant, and working on her master’s degree in Social Work. Posos will be graduating in May with an MSW and hopefully continuing to work with students for students within higher education.
Crew
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Dan Parris
Director, Producer, Editor, Director of Photography
Dan Parris is an award-winning filmmaker and owner of Speak Up Productions, a St. Louis based film production company focused on documentaries and media content for non-profits. He’s the director of the feature length documentaries When the Saints, Show Me Democracy and the award-winning film What Matters? Dan was the closing speaker at the 2014 TEDxGatewayArch City 2.0 event. Most recently, Dan co-founded the non-profit, Continuity, whose mission is to expand diversity in media production.
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JR
Composer
So Hot Productions is the production company of Grammy award-winning artist/songwriter/producer J.R.. With credits including a Grammy Award for his work on Hip Hop artist Lecrae’s album Gravity, to his three Stellar Awards and two Dove Awards, J.R. has had an exciting and rewarding career thus far. His career highlights include working with some of the industry’s best musicians, songwriters and artists like St Louis natives, Nelly and The St Lunatics, Andy Mineo, Kenny Lattimore, Emilio Roas, Tye Tribbet, Da Truth, Thisl and Flame just to name a few. You can hear and see his work on media outlets such as BET, MTV, GMC, DayStar and more.
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Kyle Montgomery
Associate Producer
Kyle Montgomery has over a decade of leadership and management experience working for a Top Fortune 100 company. Since leaving the corporate world, he has been consulting startups and helping make their dreams a reality through his company KJ Media. He works full-time as business manager and producer for Speak Up Productions and is the co-founder of Continuity.
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Kevin & Anna Botka
Motion graphics and animators
Botka Collective is a husband and wife led creative team based in Denver, CO. They specialize in purpose-driven short form animation and narrative content, working with a variety of non-profit organizations and small businesses.
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Joey Jetton
Cinematographer
Joey Jetton is a commercial cinematographer and professional sports shooter. He’s worked as a freelancer with Speak Up Productions for the last five years on numerous projects.
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Quinsonta Boyd
Cinematographer, Assistant Editor
Quinsonta Boyd is an independent videographer. His passion for film led him to create a short documentary screened in the Saint Louis Filmmakers showcase in 2013. Since then, Quinsonta has done work with organizations such as STL Artworks, The Saint Louis Scholarship Foundation, and Speak Up Productions through his company, Boyd Media.
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Sean Loftin
Cinematographer
Sean Loftin is a filmmaker who began a career in photojournalism with several newspapers, as well as teaching kindergarten, first, and second grades. Most recently he has started his own film company in St. Louis called Ubertonic Films, and has focused on storytelling in the city.
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Darnell Brown
Cinematographer, Assistant Editor
Darnell Brown is an independent photographer and filmmaker and the owner of Forgotten Image Media.
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Sam Maul
Sound Mixer
Sam Maul is an audio engineer at Shock City Studios, one of the St. Louis region’s premier audio facilities. His work ranges from recording rock bands to producing podcasts and everything in between - Show Me Democracy is the first documentary he’s had the pleasure of mixing.
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Chris Irwin
Sound Mixer
Soon after graduating from Biola University’s film program, Chris worked as the sound editor and mixer on The Black Dawn which was picked up by Hulu. Since then he has worked on a number of other films, including the documentary What Matters? which has been shown all over the country. For his day job, Chris works as an audio supervisor overseeing and mixing for live events.
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Evan Schneider
Colorist
Evan Schneider is a freelance colorist based in Los Angeles, California. His interest in cameras and editing led him to attend Biola University in Southern California to study Cinema and Media Arts. Evan’s freelance career boosted off of an internship at one of LA’s top color facilities, and he now spends his time coloring feature films, commercial projects, music videos, and weddings.
Press
Oberserver - Exclusive Clip: Ferguson Documentary ‘Show Me Democracy’
STL Today - Documentary featuring St. Louis college students shows power of protests, policy
St. Louis American - Not all scholarships are created equal
Forward Through Ferguson - Amber
FOX 2 St. Louis - Show Me Democracy: Film about Policy & Protest premieres on Fuse
Organizations featured in the film
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The Active Advocacy Coalition
The Coalition seeks to increase higher education access and affordability for students in Missouri and Illinois by inspiring, advancing, or defeating policies at the institutional, state, or federal level that affect access and success for low-income and first-generation students.
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Continuity STL
One way the St. Louis community got involved with the film is through the nonprofit Continuity. Continuity’s mission is to expand diversity in media production through skills-based training, mentorships and opportunities for untapped talent. Continuity had a training program where we trained underrepresented, aspiring filmmakers to help edit and market the film.A lot of the scenes in the film were actually edited by students initially, and then fall 2016, Continuity had a program where students learned film marketing and had experts come in and speak to them. They helped design posters, logos, T-shirts, gave feedback on the trailer and they did grassroots marketing on the streets. See highlights from the Marketing & Distribution class.
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The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis
The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis, a nonprofit organization founded in 1920, is based upon the conviction that an educated citizenry is essential to a healthy democracy. The Scholarship Foundation provides access to postsecondary education to members of our community who otherwise would not have the financial means to fulfill their educational goals.
The Foundation sees higher education as a catalyst, an agent of change for individuals, families, communities, and nations. They envision a community that recognizes the importance of educational attainment and assures positive educational outcomes are accessible to all regardless of economic circumstance. In their community, doors will not be closed to those lack financial resources, and postsecondary education will be available to all with the potential to succeed.
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Volunteer Lawyer & Accountants For The Arts
Though not featured in the film, the VLAA helped coordinate pro-bono legal assistance for the project. They are an incredible asset for any St. Louis artist needing legal or accounting assistance. Their mission is to provide quality direct legal and business services and ongoing educational programs for artists at every career level and across all arts disciplines.
About
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Amidst the uprising in Ferguson, 7 St. Louis college students evolve into advocates and activists as they demand change through policy and protest.
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Amidst the uprising in Ferguson, seven St. Louis college students evolve into advocates and activists as they demand change through policy and protest and test the validity of the Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Show Me Democracy documents the efforts of The Scholarship Foundation’s Education Policy Internship Program, which empowers students to research education policy issues that affect them and their peers, and to coordinate efforts to influence public policy around increasing post-secondary educational access for low-income students. The documentary follows the interns’ initial frustrations with police brutality and failing school systems; their first meetings as a team; one student’s experience of being tear-gassed on the streets of Ferguson; and the group’s visits with Missouri representatives. At the state capitol, they advocate for educational reforms that would improve educational access for students of color, those with limited financial resources, and immigrant students in Missouri. The film examines the students’ personal lives and diverse backgrounds, follows them as they cope with the events in Ferguson, and will ultimately reveal whether a group of committed young people can make a difference in complex and imperfect systems.
Show Me Democracy functions as a powerful tool that educates young people on not only the need for educational advocacy, but the power they have to affect change for themselves and those around them. Too often young people are dismissed as a group without the right to have their views considered or their interests independently represented at any level of decision making. One of the film’s taglines represents that well “Nothing about me, without me.” Our audiences will realize they have the capacity, potential, power, and right to speak up on those issues that directly affect them and their peers.
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Before Michael Brown was killed, I had only been to Ferguson once even though I had lived in St. Louis for over 25 years. As his death and the subsequent community response became an international story, I wondered if I should be a part of documenting what was happening in Ferguson. I had made documentaries in Kenya, Malawi and Nicaragua, and now there was a story to be told in my own backyard. I went out to an organized protest, and there were so many cameras there. I quickly realized this wasn’t my story to tell. Two months later we heard a series of gunshots just blocks from our apartment.
Vonderrit Myers, a young man who the police say was armed, was shot and killed in a confrontation with an off duty police officer just blocks from our house. This was a young man I had probably driven past nearly every day on my way home. A day later, right outside our front door, we heard drumming and protesters chanting “Out of Your Homes and Into the Streets! Out of Your Homes and Into the Streets!” I went out with my camera into the streets and started filming. For the first few weeks, I didn’t know why I was filming or what might come of it, but literally every day there were people protesting right by my house.
A few weeks later I had a meeting with Faith Sandler, the executive director of the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis (where I had been a student receiving funds years before). She told me, “We’re doing this unorthodox, advocacy internship program,.” I asked, “When does this program start?” And she said, “In an hour.” I ran home, got my film gear, and that was the day the story started to come together revolving around the Active Advocacy Internship program.
One of the biggest personal drivers for this film is that for two years prior, I had been mentoring students from Roosevelt High School, a local high school in St. Louis city with an organization called Young Life. I had worked with students with similar backgrounds and life experiences to Mike Brown. These students are very close to my heart and they’re friends of mine and I felt in a lot of ways, I was making this movie for them.
The story quickly evolved to be about a lot more than Ferguson as an event or a place or a movement, but about how inequity shows itself most in education systems. Our vision was to connect what was happening in Ferguson with police-community relations with the history of systematic injustice in St. Louis specifically in terms of education.
As a white male originally from a more affluent part of the city (though I experienced financial hardship too), I think my privilege offered me an interesting perspective. Living in the city, being married to a social worker, and volunteering in our city’s public schools gave me some insight on inequality. Growing up white in well-funded school districts in the suburbs, I also understood what the majority was thinking about the Ferguson protests. One of my biggest realizations was that when we were talking about Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement, people are often talking in code about very different things. Often when white people from the suburbs heard about protests in Ferguson and Black Lives Matter, they imagined burning buildings, overturned cars, hate directed at police officers, or things like that. When my black friends were involved in or talked about the protests, they saw those events as fighting for justice, fighting for “US.” This is what you will see in the film: struggling schools; lack of quality housing; lack of opportunity; as well as personal experiences with police profiling. In the film, you’ll hear individuals thinking about their friends who have been shot by the police and about structural inequality that’s been in place for hundreds of years. Among us, we are often using the same words while talking about different things. As a community, we’ve been having two different conversations.
My hope is that the film challenges audiences to consider the way they view the Ferguson Movement and the underlying issues of race, poverty, undocumented students, our current educational system and most importantly, what role individuals can play in our messy democracy. As Brittany says, “Every person has a role to play.” Your voice is a gift and a chance to make sure the idea of “nothing about, without me” rings true in your community as well. Engagement in democracy is as important now as it has ever been.
Since the film ended, the Active Advocacy program received funding to grow the program to 100 students statewide and each of the policy interns has gone on to further their education or start new jobs, but all of them continue to speak up on the issues they care about. Each of them are fighting the issues that break their heart by doing what makes them come alive. I hope this film inspires others to do the same.
Dan Parris, Director of Show Me Democracy
A Speak Up Productions film
FAQ For Director
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The driving force behind my work is the idea that young people can make a huge difference in this world, and that we all have a different role to play in bettering this world. We should all ask ourselves two questions, What breaks our heart? and What makes us come alive? Where the answer to those two questions intersect is where you find your purpose. As Aristotle said, “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross; therein lies your vocation.”
The driving force for this project was that the Ferguson uprising was something I didn’t fully understand, but was inspiring to me as someone who is passionate about the fact that young people can make a difference. Here was a group of young people doing it right here in my city, and I wanted to understand their viewpoints better and the issues at hand. In the process, I stumbled into learning so much about college access for low income students, minorities and undocumented students that I was also so unaware about. I quickly learned how access to education and the issues brought up by the Ferguson uprising were so closely intertwined.
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I strongly felt the history leading up to the Ferguson uprising all the way back to the Missouri Compromise, restrictive covenants and Pruitt-Igoe was important to put this situation in context.
Also, I felt that many people hadn’t seen first hand the more creative and elaborate of these protests, some of which are featured in this film like Black Brunch and the airport shutdown. These were elaborate events where diverse viewpoints were forced to collide which I think will create dynamic conversations for the audience.
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I actually was a scholarship recipient and in fact just paid off my loan which took me about 12-13 years to pay off. The foundation had screened my previous film, What Matters?, and I had stayed in communication with them loosely since then. In a meeting about an unrelated project, Faith, the executive director, mentioned the Advocacy Internship program and I had never heard of anything like it.
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From my experience, though Ferguson was started by the killing of Mike Brown and frustration towards police and community relations, the conversations I heard on the ground covered such a wider range of topics. Conversations during these protests were so fascinating. They revolved around housing, education, court systems,the school to prison pipeline, racism, privilege and so much more. To me, it started so many necessary conversations in our community about race and equity that I hope lead to meaningful changes that give all people in cities like St. Louis an equal opportunity to succeed. You can see this represented in the subsequent Ferguson Commision report (http://forwardthroughferguson.org).
One other big takeaway is that I consistently found myself thinking of the old adage, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” I think that idea alone could go a long way in this whole dialogue about race in our country.
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I don’t really feel qualified to speak on that, and I don’t feel that I was apart of those conversations too much. I can tell you that the chant “Show me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like” was one of the most common cries I heard. From my experience, much of the movement felt they were “waking up” the democracy and letting them know they are here and won’t be silenced.
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I am curious how folks will receive the film. Show Me Democracy only highlights a small group of the many people involved in these causes, so I hope people just see it as a true account of this small group of individuals’ experiences and actions. Of course, I hope it ignites change and do believe it covers a wide range of complicated issues, but is not by any means trying to represent the movement as a whole. I believe I told the truth with the story I decided to tell, and that is about all I can do. Also, I know I have the support of those featured in the film with the message because it was a very collaborative process, so I think that gives me a lot of peace.
Screenings
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Active Advocacy Conference (Rough Cut Screening) | Lake of Ozarks, MO | Oct 2016
St. Louis International Film Festival (Work in Progress screening) | St. Louis, MO | Nov 2016
SLU High School | St. Louis, MO | Nov 2016
Missouri History Museum | St. Louis, MO | Nov 2016
Premier Charter School | St. Louis, MO | Nov 2016
Westminster Christian Academy | West County, MO | Dec 2016
Carnahan High School | St. Louis, MO | Jan 12th, 2017
City Garden Montessori School | St. Louis, MO | Jan 16th, 2017
Lindenwood | St. Charles, MO | Jan 17th, 2017
Emerson College | Boston, MA | Jan 25th, 2017
UMSL | St. Louis, MO | Jan 25th, 2017
College Access Luncheon | Saint Louis, MO | Feb 3rd, 2017
The Journey - Tower Grove | St. Louis, MO | Feb 3rd, 2017
Webster Groves Christian Church | Webster Groves, MO | Feb 25th, 2017
Mizzou | Columbia, MO | Feb27th, 2017
STLCC - Forest Park | St. Louis, MO | March 20th, 2017
The Journey - Hanley Rd. | Clatyon, MO | Mar 31, 2017
UMSL | Ferguson, MO | April 7th, 2017
Webster University | Webster Groves, MO | April 19th, 2017
Sumner High School | St. Louis, MO | April 26th, 2017
FUSE TV US Broadcast Premiere | | April 29, 2017
FM.tv Broadcast Screening | | May 9th, 2017
Kipp Charter School | St. Louis, MO | June 22, 2017
Children Services Coalition | St. Louis, MO | July 14th, 2017
Urban Mission Center, | St. Louis, MO | July 18th, 2017
High Jump's Alumni Leadership retreat | Tiskilwa, IL | Aug 12-14th, 2017
College Bound | St. Louis, MO | Aug 15th, 2017
DocUtah Film Festival | St. George, UT | Sept 3-9th, 2017
NCAN National Conference | San Diego, CA | Sept 12th, 2017
Biola University | Los Angeles, CA | Sept 14th, 2017
Awareness Film Festival | Los Angeles, CA | Oct 5th, 2017
NSPA National Conference (Presentation Showcase) | Seattle, WA | Oct 10th, 2017
Heartland Film Festival | Indianapolis, IN | Oct 16-17th, 2017
NACA Mid Atlantic Conference (Presentation Showcase) | Buffalo, NY | Oct 19-20th, 2017
NACA Mid America Conference (Presentation Showcase) | Covington, KY | Oct 26-27th, 2017
NACA Northeast Conference (Presentation Showcase) | Hartford, CT | Nov 2-3rd, 2017
Fontbonne University | St. Louis, MO | Nov 6th, 2017
LaSalle University | Philadelphia, PA | Fall 2017
The Cortex (CIC - St. Louis) | St. Louis, MO | Nov 29th, 2017
Grand Rapids Community College | Grand Rapids, MI | 1pm, Jan 15th, 2018
Xavier University | Cincinnati, OH | Jan 16th, 2018
Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival | Lafayette, LA | 2:15pm, Jan 27th, 2018
Houston Area Urban League | Houston, TX | Jan 2018
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts | North Adams, MA | 7pm, Feb 8th, 2018
Wells College | Aurora, NY | 4:30pm, Feb 9th, 2018
Ivy Tech Community College | Fort Wayne, IN | 12pm, Feb 21st, 2018
Bridgewater University | Bridgewater, MA | 7pm, Feb 22nd, 2018
Big Muddy Film Festival | Carbondale, IL | Feb 19-25th, 2018
Colorado State Univ. - Pueblo | Pueblo, CO | Feb 2018
SXSW Edu | Austin, TX | March 5-8th, 2018
Northern Illinois University | Dekalb, IL | 6pm, March 8th, 2018
University of Bridgeport | Bridgeport, CT | April 11, 2018
The Crossing | Chesterfield, MO | April 15th, 2018 - 6:30pm (Open to the Public)
Lower East Side Film Festival | New York City, NY | June 10th, 2018 at 7:30pm
DC Child and Family Services Agency | Washington D.C | Spring 2018
Youth in Need | St. Charles, MO | Spring 2018
Bronze Lens Film Festival | Atlanta, GA | August 22-26th, 2018
Covellite Film Fest | Butte, MT | Sept. 12-16th, 2018
Global Peace Film Fest | Orlando, FL | Sept. 17-23rd, 2018
Missouri History Museum (Free) | St. Louis, MO | Sept. 20th, 2018
NACA National Conference (Presentation Showcase) | Columbus, OH | February 16-18, 2019
Hampden-Sydney College | Hampden-Sydney,VA | February 27, 2019
University of Texas at San Antonio | San Antonio, TX | April 2, 2019
Manchester United Methodist Church | Manchester, MO | August 18th, 2019, 12:30pm (Open to Public)
Morning Star Church | Dardenne Prairie, MO | August 21st, 2019
Midwestern State University | Wichita Falls, TX | November 12th, 2019
University of Delaware | Newark, DE | November 13th, 2019
Bloomsburg University | Bloomsburg, PA | November 18th, 2019
Illinois State University | Virtual | August 15th, 2020
Rise Film Fest by Fan Force Films | Virtual | Fall 2020
Illinois State University | Virtual | October 16th, 2020
NACA Virtual Conference | Virtual | Oct 2020
Community Colleges of Spokane | Virtual | October 28th, 2020
Lawrence Tech. University | Virtual | February 23rd, 2021
Colby-Sawyer College | Virtual | April 14th, 2021
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