University of North Georgia faculty members are creating a documentary film and are bringing its subject to the Gainesville Campus to provide students with real-life experience.
Robyn Hicks, assistant professor of film and digital media will direct “Sybil,” a documentary about award-winning author/actress/playwright Sybil Rosen. The film is co-directed by Natalie De Diego, and James Mackenzie, associate director of film and digital media in UNG’s School of Communication, Film & Theatre, serves as producer.
“This is a personal passion project, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to integrate it into the work our film program is doing,” Hicks said. “I am so inspired by her life and creativity, and feel I have so much to learn from her. I have a feeling others will feel the same.”
Hicks received a for the documentary.
The film is an intimate documentary feature that interweaves the narrative of Rosen’s past, as told by the 70-year-old writer herself as she contemplates her decades-long career and confronts an uncertain future.
Rosen will have a micro-residency that will include visiting classrooms and sharing her experience, knowledge and expertise with our students and faculty, Hicks said.
“This micro-residency with Sybil presents a unique and exciting opportunity to unite cross-departmental collaboration between film, theatre and English,” she added.
“Blaze” will be offered in a public screening at 7 p.m. Sept. 14 in the Film & Digital Media building, Room 147, at UNG’s Gainesville Campus. “Blaze” is a biographical film directed by Ethan Hawke based on the life of singer/songwriter/musician Blaze Foley. The screenplay by Hawke and Rosen was adapted from Rosen’s memoir “Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze.” The screening will be presented in collaboration with the Student Film Association.
“After reading Sybil’s memoir, and watching its film adaptation, I understood the appeal,” Christine Perez, a student and unit production manager for the project, said. “Discovering and sharing extraordinary stories, like that of Sybil, is a major motivation for the types of projects I hope to develop. This experience directly enables me to put the extensive training I’ve received at UNG to practical use and, has confirmed I’ve chosen a fulfilling path.”
Perez is a senior from Laurelton, New York, pursuing a degree in film and digital media with a production concentration.
Hicks said the experience of producing the documentary about Rosen is deeply personal.
“Although many years and life experiences set us apart, I am often left in awe at the parallels between Sybil’s life and my own,” Hicks said. “In 2017, I lost my husband and creative partner to cancer, rendering me uncertain of my own creative trajectory. Meeting Sybil sparked something within me — which I have not felt since his passing. I have an unyielding desire to tell Sybil’s story of survival, her complete story, as raw and personal as it can be.”
Rosen will be performing the one-woman show “The Belle of Amherst” based on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson at 2:30 p.m. Sept.18 in the Ed Cabell Theatre at the Gainesville Campus.
“I’m very excited to bring Blaze Foley and Emily Dickinson to UNG,” Rosen said. “Two very different geniuses from very different centuries, and yet they shared a profound desire to carve out a life that would sustain their passion for making art.”