Student filmmakers Carlos Muchara and M. Fritz Baur. Ben Jackson photo.

Professor and filmmaker Ann Alter heard about the series from an official of the American Documentary Showcase. She contacted the National Film, Television and Theatre School of Poland which organized the series, and the Arcata project was approved.

“Thanks to the support of the HSU Department of Theatre, Film and Dance, I was able to offer a class in order to create the documentary,” Alter said. “19 students participated, ranging from beginners with no experience to advanced film students. We had a wonderful and intense spring semester together.”

“The structure that the project gave us was to take each hour of the day and create a little four-minute portrait, each in a different place in Arcata. We ended up with ten segments. A totally different team of students worked on each segment, as director, editor, camera operator, sound and so forth. Each portrait has its own style, but also works within the film as a whole.”

Alter didn’t want to give too much away, but some other scenes in the film take place in an artist’s studio, a Mexican restaurant, the Humboldt Patient Resource Center and the Arcata Senior Lunch Program. There are also scenes of local landscape and wildlife.