David Zucker has been named the winner of the 4th Biennial Derek Freese Documentary Fund, awarding production support to his feature-length documentary film, Memphis.
Memphis loves Seneca. He’s a millennial with severe cerebral palsy, and he wants to be a filmmaker and travel the world. Seneca’s an aspiring opera singer, living with her mom, deep in oil country. Seneca just wants to be friends. MEMPHIS follows five years of this unfolding relationship as it takes us from Texas to California to Italy and back, and illuminates the turbulent realities facing a young man with a severe disability as he strives toward independence, and of a young woman looking to escape the drudgery of small-town Texas. As financial responsibilities mount and Memphis’ crush threatens their friendship, Memphis and Seneca must forge new identities and attitudes towards sex, family, work, and life itself, clinging to their dreams of a brighter future.
This event will present the 2019 Derek Freese Documentary Fund Award to Zucker, as well as show clips of his winning film. In addition, there will be a full screening of the completed production from the 2017 DFDF winner, Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable, by filmmaker Sasha Waters Freyer.
Both Zucker and Freyer will be in attendance to take post-screening questions.
Tickets are free and open to the public.