Students to present Bahamian climate justice film

After 11 months and countless hours of researching, interviewing, filming and editing, Extending the Link (ETL) has completed its annual documentary just in time for Scholarship and Creativity Day.

Entitled “Born, Bred, Ga Dead,” the documentary shares the stories of many Bahamians and their experiences with climate change. Due to the pandemic in recent years, this is the first documentary since the 2018-2019 academic year that students were able to interview and film in-person. Founded in 2008, ETL’s primary focus is to uplift under-told stories in an ethical way and create lasting impact locally and globally. The organization is unpaid and student-led, which Research and Relations Co-director Isabelle Schmelzer said displayed students’ dedication and resilience to the project.

“The group as a whole over the years has just been incredible,” Schmelzer said. “It’s an awesome group of people, and their passion throughout the process of creating the film shows why ETL has been around for so long.”

Just a week after the premiere of their 2022 film, “Diverse Bodies, Beautiful Minds: Voices of Disability Activism,” the team began to converse about plans for this year’s documentary. After discussion, they narrowed their ideas down to three possible options. Throughout the summer, researchers studied information from the topics, located who would be the best to contact and determined what would be the most attainable project to accomplish in an ethical way.

“Research starts with a question,” Schmelzer said.

Some of these questions included the investigation of background information on climate-induced migration, affected groups, contributing factors, organizations involved in working for betterment of the problem and leading activists in this area. After selecting the topic, members then started scheduling local interviews throughout the fall. During this time, they prepared questions for the interviewees and gathered preliminary footage from these interviews. In early January during winter break, two co-directors, one researcher and three videographers journeyed to The Bahamas to interview and film.

Interviews included conversations with a senior fisheries manager, youth educators, high schoolers, climate activists and CSB+SJU students from The Bahamas. After intensive research, from the initial observations of what the topic is to the international travel, ETL begins their story board process in the early spring in which they synthesize a message based on the information they collected. Creative co-director and CSB senior Mari Hermerding has been involved in this process since her first year of college. In her current position, she oversees videography, the story board and final edits.

“To see how excited everyone is about this project and seeing how much work everyone puts into this process just brings me the most joy I can ever ask for,” Hermerding said.

There are a total of 37 current members of the team, divided into six different teams: videography, marketing, research, outreach, finance and event planning. According to Hermerding, each team plays a crucial role in the process.

“When people think of documentaries and the production of a documentary, they think of just video…but it’s so much more than that,” Hermerding said.

During the pandemic, ETL adapted their methods by creating a podcast in 2021 and a film gallery in 2022.

“The pandemic has been a stressor for everyone, but it’s been a source of renewal and growth for ETL as a whole, opening a lot of doors and challenging our perceptions of what is and what has been and what we choose for the future,” Schmelzer said.

Outside of their documentary work, ETL also promotes local initiatives to create lasting impact in the community through panel events, volunteer and fundraising opportunities and permanent art installations.By commencement, ETL hopes to install a permanent art installation of current Bahamian Bennie, Johnnie and alumni faces checkered in the colors of the Bahamian flag with a plaque below it in the HCC near the pool. ETL is also working alongside with the Archipelago Caribbean Association to revive Bahamian Day celebrations.

“Everybody’s putting in a lot of hard work, so I’m really excited to celebrate that,” Schmelzer said.

Schmelzer and the rest of the team will get to celebrate their work during the first public viewing of the documentary on Thursday, April 27, at 7 p.m. in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater as a part of Scholarship and Creativity Day.