Freedom Hill’s Youth Media Camp is a 4-week documentary production program connecting NC students to Princeville’s Black history

Students are guided through each stage of the documentary filmmaking process, from research and creative treatment development, to cinematography and post-production by industry professionals. Students apply the concepts learned through a group short documentary about Princeville’s annual Homecoming celebration. A cohort of 8 students are invited to participate in the first year programming, each taking on a key crew role to form a full student production team, complete with a director, producer, editor, DP and more. 

Unlike many media camps that charge tuition, our students are paid up to $1,000 each for their work. 

The Fellowship: Each year a select few students are invited to participate in a second year fellowship. Fellows take a deeper dive into film elements and develop a film idea over the course of the program that culminates with public pitch presentations.

Pass industry masterclass teachers include: Cai Thomas, Natalie Bullock-Brown, Eric D. Seals, Ashley O’Shay, Donald Conely, Brian Allonce, Donnie Seals, Vann Newkirk

 
 

Backstory: 

Filmmaker Resita Cox founded the Freedom Hill Youth Media Camp in 2022, as a part of the impact campaign of her debut film, Freedom Hill. Freedom Hill explores the environmental racism washing away the first town chartered by Black people in the country: Princeville, NC. The acclaimed film toured over 20 film festivals across the country and was named Best Documentary Short at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival and Best Short on Sustainability at DC’s Environmental Film Festival. Freedom Hill was recently acquired by PBS and can be viewed here.

Shortly after premiering at the 2022 Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham, NC, Resita hosted the inaugural youth media camp in Princeville with no major funders and despite, paid all of her students up to $1,000 for their participation. The program was initially meant to run for one summer, but students expressed the impact the camp had on their lives and Resita committed to make it an annual program. In 2023, she added the Fellowship, which invites returning students to take a deeper dive into filmmaking, culminating in individual films and pitches. The camp will enjoy its third year in July/August 2024, and its first year as an official program under FREEDOM ORG, a nonprofit organization in Edgecombe County founded by Marquetta Dickens, the main character in Freedom Hill.  

What is a film impact campaign? Impact campaigns utilize documentary films as organizing tools and are essentially the film’s outreach plan beyond the theater. Impact campaigns help push a film’s social agenda forward and aim to create tangible and measurable change beyond the storytelling itself. In short, it's when filmmakers want to do more than just tell the story.  The mission of Freedom HIll’s impact campaign was to educate the public about the historical significance of Princeville, Eastern North Carolina’s struggles with environmental racism, as well as preserve the history of Princeville. The approach to achieve this is multi-faceted and includes a youth media camp, teaching curriculum and unique educational screenings, community screenings, and a family-reunion styled screening and discussion series. It is important that the work is grounded in more than just storytelling, and that it contributes to the work that is being done to protect and preserve Princeville. Resita believes one way to do that is to connect the community to resources, and arm our younger generations with hidden Black history and tools to archive it. 

The Freedom Hill Youth Media Camp was born out of the desire to decolonize the film industry and create a direct pathway for young Black people to become filmmakers in North Carolina. North Carolina’s rich Black history and struggle against environmental racism was intentionally left out of the state’s teaching curriculum. If we want to change the stories being told, and how we are remembered,  we have to change the storytellers. 

*To donate to our camp, please use the link below and list “Media Camp” in your memo.  

Goals of Youth media camp Impact program

  • Make documentary film more accessible to young people in Eastern North Carolina

  • Introduce young people in North Carolina to Princeville’s history and struggles with environmental racism

  • Contribute to the legacy and tradition of Black people documenting and archiving our own experiences

  • Decolonize the film industry and dismantle the harmful ways we traditionally have told stories in Black communities

Important Dates: 

  • April 15 2024 - Application Opens

  • May 31 2024 - Application due

  • June - Interviews

  • June 30 - Cohort selected and notified

  • Camp Dates July 23 - August 15 2024

Student Eligibility Details:

  • Be between 14 and 19 years old

  • Able to travel to Eastern North Carolina or currently residing in Eastern North Carolina

    • Travel will not be provided.

  • Be available to participate in the entire camp, including production days and graduation

  • Have own device to complete camp assignments

For camp related inquires, please reach out to our Impact Producer at alexis.bell@freedomorg.org

APPLICATIONS DUE MAY 31, 2024