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Willa Cather: Breaking the Mold

Willa Cather defies convention. She was both a regional writer and an international literary superstar; her novels and stories transported readers to a lowly frontier dugout or an elegant theater loge with equal adeptness. For more than one hundred years, Cather’s deeply human characters and stories rooted in her own American experience have resonated with readers, and now Cather’s enduring reputation has earned her a place in the National Statuary Hall Collection of the United States Capitol. This short film chronicles Cather’s pursuit of literary acclaim alongside the creation and unveiling of her statue in Washington, D.C. Using archival imagery, Cather’s own words, and observations from contemporary readers and scholars, this documentary invites viewers to revisit and reexamine Cather’s importance to American literature and encourages exploration of her life more fully through literary pilgrimage.

  • Ashley Olson
    Producer
  • Ingrid Holmquist
    Producer
    Guanajuato Norte, Chief Standing Bear’s Journey to Statuary Hall, Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
  • Ingrid Holmquist
    Director
  • Tracy Tucker
    Archival Consultant
  • Ken Burns
    Interviewees
    The American Buffalo, The Dust Bowl, Hemingway
  • Littleton Alston
    Interviewees
  • Kali Fajardo-Anstine
    Interviewees
  • Andrew Jewell
    Interviewees
  • Melissa Homestead
    Interviewees
  • Rachel Olsen
    Interviewees
  • Ashley Olson
    Interviewees
  • Kelsey Squire
    Interviewees
  • Tracy Tucker
    Interviewees
  • Tracyann F Williams
    Interviewees
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    46 minutes 10 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 6, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    50,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Willa Cather Spring Conference
    Red Cloud
    United States
    June 6, 2024
    Premiere
Distribution Information
  • Willa Cather Foundation
    Distributor
    Country: United States
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Ingrid Holmquist

Ingrid is an award-winning filmmaker, video journalist, and educator working primarily on documentary films. Her latest freelance work includes producing and editing commissioned documentaries, editing documentaries for BBC Reel, Brut. Docs and Hearst TV Digital Studios, and teaching video journalism and documentary filmmaking at the International Center of Photography.

She most recently worked on the premium history docu-series Vegas: The Story of Sin City through Bungalow Media, which aired on CNN this year. Ingrid is proud to have worked on an Emmy-nominated series for Sesame Street in Communities, an educational project about how to talk to kids about race and racism. Before switching to freelancing, she worked as an Associate Producer on eight feature-length historical documentaries for CNN Specials, including the Emmy-award-winning documentary How The World Sees America.

With her production partner Sana A. Malik, Ingrid produced, shot, and edited the student BAFTA-award-winning documentary, Guanajuato Norte. The film follows Wenceslao Contreras Galvan, a migrant farmworker in Connecticut, and his sacrifice of being away from his family to provide a better life for his children in Mexico. The film went on to screen at multiple film festivals and was acquired by The New Yorker.

She co-directed, produced, and edited the commissioned films Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte and Chief Standing Bear's Journey to Statuary Hall, with Executive Producer and co-Director Judi gaiashkibos. Both films about prominent Indigenous trailblazers went on to screen across the country as an educational tool for public, private, and tribal schools.

Continuing her work creating short biographical documentaries about historic Nebraskans, Ingrid recently finished a short documentary with The National Willa Cather Center about the legacy of Cather, a preeminent queer American female writer of the 20th century.

In addition to her work producing independent and commissioned projects, she loves helping other directors’ visions come to life as a producer, editor, or videographer. She’s easily curious but particularly drawn toward participant-driven stories with a social justice angle.

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