Fresh Start
Short documentary, written, directed and produced by Cigdem Slankard, 2017, 13 minutes.
Fresh Start chronicles the lives of a refugee farm community in rural New Hampshire. This collective of refugee and immigrant farmers are participating in the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project. There are over 20 farmer entrepreneurs, representing the Somali-Bantu, Bhutanese, Burundi, and Congolese communities, as well as other ethnic groups. Most members of this small community came to the US with one marketable skill, farming. Fresh Start is the story of these farmers with no farm, examining the new American identity, the value of land and food in a brave new world.
Fresh Start chronicles the lives of a refugee farm community in rural New Hampshire. This collective of refugee and immigrant farmers are participating in the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project. There are over 20 farmer entrepreneurs, representing the Somali-Bantu, Bhutanese, Burundi, and Congolese communities, as well as other ethnic groups. Most members of this small community came to the US with one marketable skill, farming. Fresh Start is the story of these farmers with no farm, examining the new American identity, the value of land and food in a brave new world.
Screenings:
- Urban Visions: Beyond the Ideal City, Bologna, Italy, 2021.
- Refugee Film Collection, web film anthology, 2019.
- Africa World Documentary Film Festival, multiple locations in USA, African, Europe and the Caribbean, 2018.
- Ethnografilm Film Festival, Paris, France, 2018.
- Sjón International Anthropological Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2018.
- Ekotopfilm - Envirofilm, Bratislava and Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, 2018.
- International Changing Perspectives Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018.
- Monadnock International Film Festival, Keene, NH, 2018.
- Colorado Environmental Film Festival, Golden, CO, 2018.
- Feminist Border Arts Film Festival, Las Cruces, NM, 2018.
- Society of Photographic Education Media Arts Festival, Philadelphia, PA, 2018.
- AgriCulture Film Festival, Rome, Italy, 2017.
- HAK-IŞ 6TH International Short Film Contest Finalist, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017.
- University Film & Video Association (UFVA), California State University, Los Angeles, CA (preview screening), 2017.
- Refugees in America Past and Present, Cleveland Humanities Festival, Cleveland, OH (preview screening), 2017.
- Becoming American through Cultivating the Land, 7th Crossing Over Symposium, Cleveland State University (preview screening), 2017.