Company/Organization Profiles | Local Industry

Island Home

1 Sep , 2007  

Written by Ellen Mills | Posted by:

Four years after forming Film-Truth productions on Martha's Vineyard, Liz Witham and Ken Wentworth are giving voice to the island community through film and garnering support from the folks vacationing from New York and Hollywood.

More than a few summer visitors to Martha’s Vineyard have dreamt of staying and living on the island year-round.  Yet, beyond the beaches and the restaurants and the shops is the reality of the lives of everyday people who call the island home.  Their lives are about making a living in the off-season, and finding a home in a place where housing prices hover in the exorbitant range and there is no such thing as a year-round rental.

Filmmaker and Martha’s Vineyard native Liz Witham says, “We call it ‘the Island shuffle.’  I spent all my life doing that.  We lived in one house in the winter and then we moved to a summer camp.”  Her personal experience helped her empathize with the subject of Film-Truth’s documentary: A Home For Us All.

Witham and her filmmaking partner and husband Ken Wentworth were contacted by the Island Affordable Housing Fund and asked to produce a series of videos about the housing situation for a summer telethon.  “They contacted us in February and the telethon was in July, so there was not much time,” Liz says.

A Home For Us All is comprised of 45 pieces, which include interviews with experts who outline the housing issue as well as portraits of people who are affected directly by the affordable housing crisis.  “Those are my favorite pieces,” Witham says.  “They’re people who grew up here and they talk about the kind of options they’re facing trying to make it work here.”

The units of affordable housing that do exist on the Vineyard are awarded through a lottery system and the film includes stories of families who are in the lottery.  “These are people in need,” Witham says.  “And they talk about what would happen if they didn’t get housing.”  Film-Truth completed the project within the short time frame, and the pieces were aired during the telethon, helping the Affordable Housing Fund to raise more than $500,000.  “It was the highest grossing fundraiser on the island,” Witham reports.

A Home For Us All will be shown at the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival on Saturday, September 15th, proceeded by a question and answer session with the filmmakers.  Witham says they know that a lack of affordable housing affects many regions and they are planning for the film to have a life beyond Martha’s Vineyard.  “We really want it to go beyond the telethon and to do some advocacy with it,” Witham explains.  They plan to upload segments to the Internet (one piece is on the Film-Truth website now) and to send the film to festivals.

The screening of their film will not be the duo’s only involvement in the Festival.  They are the impetus behind a forum titled Think Globally, Shot Locally, which features the work of local film and video artists.  “Ken and I are really interested in supporting the local film scene.  We wanted to build energy and be supportive of the community here,” says Witham.  Wentworth agrees:  “It’s great to have directors come from around the world, but the festival should be a venue for local filmmakers as well.  I mean, the staunchest film festival fans are local filmmakers.”

The forum has two components: a contest in which island filmmakers may submit a short on the theme Other Places and an opportunity for local filmmakers to screen excerpts of works-in-progress.  At press time, the submissions were not finalized.


Amera Ignacio wins the housing lottery in A Home For Us All.
[Click to enlarge]

The couple met at a party on the island in 1997.  As their personal relationship grew, they traveled together and it was during a trip to China that the idea of pursuing filmmaking took hold of their imaginations.  Both say that they wished that they could capture their experiences visually to share with others.  “I wanted to go to film school to learn the craft,” Witham says.  “I always wanted to be a writer.  I’ve always appreciated the creative process and the art of storytelling.  I had applied for screenwriting programs, then I heard about Stanford’s documentary program.  It’s very small, only eight people.  I applied on a whim and I got in.”

They moved to Los Angeles and while Witham attended graduate school, Wentworth got a job as a production assistant for ABC Sports.  “I moved up to wrapping cables,” he jokes.  He had plenty of other opportunities to get some on the job training.  “As the spouse of a Stanford film student — there’s only eight people in the program so I was a PA on all of her co-students’ films.”  He took a film course himself and then purchased a Panasonic AG-DVX 100 with 24P capability.

When Witham finished the program, they returned to the Vineyard and formed their production company.  When they work on a documentary, they share the responsibilities.  “Liz has an outstanding education in filmmaking. She is more technical than I am,” Wentworth says.  “I have some strengths, though she may not agree,” he adds jovially.

For her part, Witham easily cites one instance where Wentworth proved to be the best interviewer.  “We did a project in New York and a lot of people in the project responded well to Ken.  He ran those interviews because people opened up to him in an incredible way.”

“There’s a lot of collaboration,” says Witham.  “With a new project, we discuss what elements are interesting to us.  We get on the same page with each other and come at things from the same angle.  We work very well with each other.”

Wentworth says they sometimes use additional crewmembers, especially for a multi-camera shoot.  “Most often though, it’s just Liz and I.  One shoots and the other does sound.  We often decide that day who feels like doing what.  We’re pretty darn dexterous.”

From 2003 until last spring, the pair worked out of their home.  “We live in Aquinnah, one of the more isolated towns here.  We had a long period of constant work in an isolated place and by last April I was really ready for a change,” Witham says.  “We just got some office space in downtown Vineyard Haven and we have some people working for us.  I just love it.”  Although she acknowledges that the conversations about work are ongoing between them, they do leave their computers behind on the weekend.  “I don’t even answer the phone,” Witham says.

Both Witham and Wentworth see clear advantages to living on the island and being filmmakers, especially during the summer.  “You have access to someone at a party or a cook-out that you’d never get a phone call back from in LA or New York,” Wentworth says.  Witham agrees, “We’re tapped in in a special way.”  She notes that there is a core community that is active year-round.  “There’s quite a bit of interesting and diverse filmmaking happening here.”   

The duo has multifaceted plans for the future.  They will continue to produce social issue documentaries and have begun a new venture they call “docutunes.”  As Wentworth explains it:  “We are building relationships with bands to create short documentaries about music and musicians.  It’s really fun.  Liz comes from a musical family — Kate Taylor is Liz’s mom and her cousin is Ben Taylor.”  Their initial efforts, some featuring Witham’s extended family including her aunt Carly Simon, can be seen on YouTube.

For natives of the Vineyard who live away for a while, there is a strong pull to return.  “Most young people can’t wait to leave because it feels very confining,” Witham says.  “Then, as you grow older, you think it’s a pretty cool place to live.”  Their work reflects their commitment to issues both close to home and abroad.  Wentworth and Witham seem to have found the right place to do the work that inspires and unites them.  Wentworth says, “We make socially relevant documentaries and we fight for the causes we care about.”  Witham concurs, “Our life together is about the work we do.”

Think Globally, Shot Locally screens this month as part of the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival. For complete program information, visit www.mvfilmfest.com. For more information about Liz Witham’s and Ken Wentworth’s company Film-Truth visit www.film-truth.com and to see segments of A Home for Us All go here.


Think Globally, Shot Locally screens this month as part of the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival. For complete program information, visit www.mvfilmfest.com. For more information about Liz Witham’s and Ken Wentworth’s company Film-Truth visit www.film-truth.com and to see segments of A Home for Us All go here.

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