A People's History of Cement
In the shadow of an abandoned cement plant, residents of a post-industrial town on the California coast reflect on the plant's tumultuous legacy and its effect on their lives.
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Kyle BakerDirectorThe Eighth Province
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Colin RosemontDirectorUnearthed
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Kyle BakerWriter
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Elisa HoughWriter
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Colin RosemontWriter
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Kyle BakerProducerThe Eighth Province
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Colin RosemontProducer
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Alverda OrlandoKey Cast
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Josie CelebradoKey Cast
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Project Type:Documentary, Experimental, Short
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Genres:Documentary, Sci-fi
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Runtime:12 minutes 50 seconds
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Completion Date:December 1, 2021
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital, MiniDV
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Aspect Ratio:4:3
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
Kyle Baker is a musician, writer, and filmmaker with an MFA in Social Documentation from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He makes documentary films, audio stories, and community media projects that focus on music, labor, and social movements.
Colin Rosemont is a writer and director with a BA in cultural anthropology and an MA in environmental studies with an emphasis on visual arts and the environmental humanities. He is in production on a series of documentary short films, expanding upon collaborative work with professional archaeologists, Southern Californian Tribal members, and land conservationists alike. These years of collaboration have led him towards developing a feature documentary film, Nihunavea: My Heart, My Center, alongside Sandra Hernandez of the Tejon Tribe. This work is part of ongoing efforts to decolonize methodologies and re-inscribe social histories into the landscape.
As long-time collaborators, we are interested in new ways of formal expression within documentary and narrative film. The story of the Davenport cement plant contains complex issues concerning labor, legacy, and identity, and we came to approach this documentary project with a central question in mind: how—through fictional interjection—can we augment the sometimes harsh realities of industry in order to better understand people's attachment to their work?