RUST BELT RENAISSANCE

Born and raised in Flint Michigan, Mike Ramsdell is a human rights activist, prominent Congo peace advocate, and award-winning writer, director, and producer. Growing up in a family dedicated to social causes—combined with an inherent love for storytelling—made directing documentary films a natural fit for Michael. After graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking he formed Under the Hood Productions with the goal of creating films that inform and advance the collective conscience of today.

To illuminate Congo’s human rights crisis, Mike dedicated his life to creating, When Elephants Fight, a documentary that takes a penetrating look at injustices in Congo, a country rich in copper, tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold, and other minerals but whose people rarely prosper. WEF spotlights the story multinationals and global tech corporations don't want to tell--the story of our world's deadliest war and their complicity in the illicit extraction and trade of Congolese minerals.

Narrated by Robin Wright and featuring Fidel Bafilemba, WEF is a United Nations Association, Bermuda and Edinburgh International, Montreal World Film Festival screened and Human DOC award-winning documentary. At great risk to their lives, WEF is also the only DRC documentary to be screened in Congo by Congolese, for Congolese.

Prior to WEF, Mike produced the Anatomy of Hate, a documentary which reveals the shared narratives found in individual and collective ideologies of hate, and how we as a species can overcome them. For six years Mike worked with unprecedented access to some of the most venomous ideologies and violent conflicts of our time including the white supremacist movement, Christian Fundamentalism as an anti-gay platform, Muslim extremism, the Palestinian Intifada, Israeli settlers and soldiers, and US Forces in Iraq.

By juxtaposing this vérité footage with interviews from leading sociological, psychological, and neurological experts, and interspersing stories of redemption told by former "combatants", the film weaves a tapestry that reveals both the emotional and biological mechanisms which make all of us susceptible to acts and ideologies of hate, and demonstrates how these very same traits make us equally capable of overcoming them.

The Anatomy of Hate: A Dialogue to Hope, has been distributed around the world, including the US, Canada, France, Spain and Australia and nominated for Film of the Year on the Documentary Film Channel.

His first film, Montclair, won Best Screenplay at the Universal Studios Cinema City Film Festival.

When not traveling, Mike spends as much time as possible with his three children, Lincoln, Nimrie, and Asher.