Grit & Grace: Brian Lindstrom

Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom  recently came to talk to Dmae Roberts’ nonfiction filmmaking class at Mt. Hood Community College’s Integrated Media Program. He talked about his career of making films depicting the grit and grace of life.  Hear his inspiring talk to emerging filmmakers featuring his critically successful film Alien Boy: the life and death of James Chasse which he premiered at the Portland International Film Festival in February 2013 and was more recently selected for the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana. (Airs 11am Sat 6/8 on KZME 107.1 fm.)

(Brian Lindstrom Photo by Garrett Downen (garrettdownen.com) on March 23, 2013. For more infor visit www.TEDxConcordiaUPortland.com)

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Alien Boy, Lindstrom’s documentary about Jim Chasse, whose death in the custody of Portland law enforcement officers in 2006 caused an outcry about civil rights and interactions between police and the mentally ill. You can learn more about Chasse’s story and see a photo from the arrest here.

Other films include: Finding Normal, his 2007 documentary on long time heroin and crack addicts trying to rebuild their lives, was picked by Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy as one of the top 10 films of the year. Other works include Writing Myself (2012), a documentary about PlayWrite, Inc. included in the Astoria International Film Festival.

Lindstrom’s latest project is Dreamers, a youth video project led in conjunction with the “I Have A Dream” Foundation (IHAD) and filmmaker Brian Lindstrom. The film profiles six teens who entered the IHAD program as first graders at Woodlawn Elementary in North Portland.

Dreamers premieres a Woodlawn Park before “Movies in the Park” on Saturday, July 6th (before dusk around 9pm). Find out more about the premiere of Dreamers.

Read an article from Lewis & Clark College’s The Chronicle magazine.