The Creativity, Education, and Leadership Podcast with Ben Guest

Ben Guest
  • 5.0 (4)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

Conversations about creativity, education, and leadership. benbo.substack.com

  1. JAN 27

    84. Writing a Memoir with Steve Suitts

    The key to pursuing happiness is living an intentional life. What do I want to achieve? What do I oppose? Steve is an adjunct professor at Emory University and the Founding Director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union. His new memoir, out today, is What’s In a Family Name: A Southern Family History Becomes a Gothic Mystery. Here’s the description: When Steve Suitts undertakes a family research project he uncovers a real-life, true crime, southern Gothic mystery. Ambition, sex, lies, and betrayal. And it all takes place in the Free State of Winston in north Alabama. And here is the book trailer I put together for Steve: You can buy the book here at Bookshop.org and here on Amazon. Steve’s website is here. In this conversation Steve and I talk: * The moment Steve realized he had a book * Giving a speech opposing the Ku Klux Klan as a high school student * Reclaiming history * The story of James Monroe Blackwell, Steve’s great-great-grandfather, who opposed the Confederacy during the Civil War * His research and writing process Here is an AI generated transcript. Don’t come for me. Here is the cleaned and corrected transcript. I have fixed the formatting, corrected the phonetic misinterpretations (like “Free State” instead of “three state” and “progeny” instead of “GY”), and smoothed out the stuttering for readability. Transcript: Interview with Steve Suitts BEN: So Steve, your memoir, What’s in a Family Name? A Southern Family History Becomes a Gothic Mystery, comes out today, Tuesday, January 27th. How are you feeling? STEVE: I’m feeling like someone who’s waiting to hear what their neighbor’s baby is gonna be called. BEN: At what point did you realize this story would make a good book? STEVE: I think the inkling of it was when I discovered that not only was my grandmother’s version of my family history on my father’s side a fiction, but that it didn’t even begin to tell the story. And that point was when I discovered that the person I thought was my grandfather could not biologically be my grandfather, since my father was born at least a year and a half after his death. BEN: The evidence strongly suggests your biological grandfather was actually B.H. Drake, a prominent, wealthy merchant in Winston County. That’s right. Why do you think the Drake family and the community worked so hard to erase Anna, your grandmother, and her son, your father, from the official record after B.H. married Anna? STEVE: This is all speculation, but I think there were probably two reasons. The first was simply a matter of embarrassment. Here was a man who was a representative of the local Baptist church at the State Baptist Convention. He gave the land on which the local Baptist church was built. His family was very deeply involved in the Baptist Church, and I think the evidence is that he probably began his affair with my grandmother before he was actually divorced from his first wife. So I think there was a real embarrassment about that in a small-town community. The second is, of course, that he died, and as a wealthy man. By law, she should have been one of the heirs of his estate, because at the time of his death, all evidence points to the fact that they were still married—although they may have, by that time, returned to his first wife’s estate. So I think that there was this financial interest, that they would want to keep it quiet. I don’t think there was a great deal of complicity on the part of the broader community, but it was just something that happened. And in the community, I think like most small towns, these things did happen and most small towns knew about it, but simply let it play out on its own terms. BEN: You devote part of the book to your great-great-grandfather, James Monroe Blackwell, who was a “scalawag,” or Southerner loyal to the Union. You mentioned that he was threatened with hanging for supporting Lincoln. He named his son after President Lincoln, and this is during the time of the Civil War. Why does his story resonate so much with you? STEVE: When I was in high school in Florence, Alabama, on the Tennessee River, I was a member of the student council, got elected, and I was asked at various times to give speeches at assemblies of the school. One of the speeches I gave was during 1964 or ‘65, and it was essentially an attack on the Klan—the Ku Klux Klan. I don’t remember the entire speech, but I do remember saying that the Klan had to understand that Halloween came only once a year, and even then, when you wore a mask, you were not allowed to harm people anonymously. And that the Klan was a group who masqueraded without any courage of showing themselves to the public. I also remember that my teachers on that day kept me late at school. For some reason I did not understand until later in life, one of them drove me home that day rather than letting me walk by myself. So I came to those views for a variety of reasons. But when I discovered that I had an ancestor who not only supported the Union during the war over slavery, but who also supported the reconstruction of the South on the terms that the Congress established in the aftermath of the Civil War... I realized that I wasn’t the first in my family to believe in the kind of equal treatment under the law that I was espousing as a high school student. And later, going on to work with the American Civil Liberties Union affiliate in Alabama—where we did more litigation relating to equal treatment under the law as we did the First Amendment—it was a moment in which I realized that whatever bloodlines do in this world for families, I wasn’t the first. And Lord have mercy, I hope I’m not the last. BEN: When you were young, did you hear stories about James Monroe Blackwell, or did you only discover this history later? STEVE: I discovered this history later. No one talked about it. My great uncle—my grandmother’s brother—Uncle Wesley, used to talk about why we were Republicans in the family, but he never talked about James Monroe Blackwell. No one did. Not even my grandmother, who I think probably had mixed up fact and fiction so much by the time she told me the story about our family history that she might have put him on the wrong side of the Civil War, after all. BEN: At the end of the book, you write about the idea of reclaiming history—both with Blackwell and with your grandmother and the Drake family, your great-grandmother, and the decisions that she made to protect her family. Can you talk about that motivation of reclaiming history and what that means to you? STEVE: Yeah. I think we all are trying to find our place in the world, but the Faulkner concept that the past is not really the past essentially means that, in finding our place in the world, we also have to know who we were in our past, where our family fit in, where we came from. It’s a very Southern notion, but I think it’s a universal one as well. Reclaiming the history, I think, means that we’re trying to understand where we came from and, by that measure, where we’re going in our lives. One of the things the book jacket says is that this is a story that no family wanted to remember, and a family too proud of its history would always want to forget. And I think for me, reclaiming history is a matter of not trying to reconstruct it or trying to hide it. It’s trying to simply say: this is where my family has been, this is who we have been. And it doesn’t predict who I’m going to be and what I’m going to be, but it gives me a way in which to frame who I am and how I’m gonna go forward. And for those who read the book, you won’t be surprised to realize that I have tried very hard in my life to not be the person my father was. I’ve made a very deliberate and very conscientious effort. Whether I’ve succeeded or not, only my sons and descendants will be able to say, but that’s part of reclaiming your history. Look at the word: his-story. That’s what history is. And part of that history is you at that moment, and you can either continue that history or you can break with it. BEN: But I’ll note... how much do you think people are shaped by their environment, by their family history? And I ask because I think you’re an example of someone who grew up in a conservative political environment. Like you said, one of the teachers had to drive you home after giving your Ku Klux Klan Halloween speech. Personally, as you write about in the introduction, your father was at best difficult—I think accurately described as abusive. And yet you... I don’t know if “rejected” is the right word, but you are a different person than those two different environments would most likely produce. STEVE: I think the key to the pursuit of happiness—as our Declaration of Independence says—in my judgment, is enabled only by having an intentional life. A life in which you say: Why am I here? What do I want to achieve? What do I want to oppose? What do I want to support? Simply have a sense of intent about how you frame your life. Now, obviously, everybody knows that we have to earn a living. Sometimes the jobs we get aren’t always the jobs we may have wanted earlier in life. It may be difficult, may have other problems. But generally, it is one where you have to simply live an intentional life, trying to have goals—whether the goals drive out of your reading of the Bible, or whether they’re from great philosophers, or simply out of the sense of what you think is right and wrong. And I think the discussion about nurture and nature is one that will continue to be unresolved. In that competition between which is more important, your lineage or your environment, there is, I think, something which some religious teachings call free will. Perhaps it’s not as free as some might think, but you have choices to make. When I was reading the first Harry Potter books with my family—the boys were small and th

    18 min

  2. JAN 20

    83. The Power of Storytelling with Terésa Dowell-Vest

    I saw the power of storytelling and the responsibility we have to share stories to educate and change lives. Dr. Terésa Dowell-Vest is an Associate Professor of Communication at Prairie View A&M University and President of the University Film and Video Association (UFVA), an organization that supports film, television, and media studies in higher education. In this conversation Terésa and I discuss: * The music of Janet Jackson, Prince, and Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis * Teaching media in a post-truth world * What UFVA is, why it matters, and how professional associations can sharpen teaching and creative practice * What filmmaking trends she sees with her students at Prairie View A&M * The short documentary her students did in collaboration with students from USC (link here) * “The Death of Cliff Huxtable” and the process of separating art from a problematic artist Thanks for reading The Creativity, Education, and Leadership Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Here is an AI generated transcript. Don’t come for me. BEN: Hi everyone—Ben Guest here. Welcome to The Creativity, Education, and Leadership Podcast. Today my guest is Professor Terésa Dowell-Vest, an associate professor of Communication and Media at Prairie View A&M University and the President of the University Film and Video Association (UFVA).In this conversation we talk Janet Jackson, the media landscape for young people interested in production, what UFVA does, and more. Enjoy.Professor, thanks so much for joining me today. TERÉSA: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure to be here. BEN: I always like to start with a fun question. Senior year of high school—what music were you listening to? TERÉSA: Senior year of high school—1989. 1990 was a great year to be a Janet Jackson fan. *Rhythm Nation* was probably worn out in my car’s tape deck. I was a huge fan. BEN: Did you do the choreography? TERÉSA: Oh yes. I can do the hands and all that—the “A‑5‑4.” I would do it, for real.And Janet Jackson was the big one, even though Prince’s *Purple Rain* came out a few years earlier. That album was still in regular rotation for me in high school.And then in 1988 New Edition put out *Heart Break*—produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. That was such a good time. So yeah: Janet, Prince, New Edition—Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were the soundtrack. BEN: ’88 was when Bobby Brown’s *Don’t Be Cruel* came out, right? TERÉSA: Listen, lemme tell you, the eighties to be a teenager in the eighties, to be in your twenties in the nineties. What a time to be alive. BEN: Yeah. I love it. Okay, second fun question. What’s your pick for best picture this year? TERÉSA: I’d say *Sinners*. There are a few this year, but funny enough I actually focused more on television—I was obsessed with *Stranger Things* and *Severance* (and one other show I’m blanking on), so I didn’t get to the movies as much. But I did see *Sinners* and it really stuck with me. I should preface that by saying I’m not as familiar with the entire pool, but I’m almost confident it’ll be a strong contender. BEN: So good. I saw that your MFA thesis was titled *The African American Producer Is the American Griot*. Can you talk about that—maybe even in relation to *Sinners*? TERÉSA: I’ve always been fascinated by the power of storytelling. My bachelor’s degree and my MFA are both in theater because I love live engagement. That also shaped me as a professor—I love being in front of students and engaging in a transactional, interactive way, not just a linear one. Theater and education give me that kind of exchange with an audience.For my graduate thesis I came to know Dr. Maulana Karenga—best known for creating Kwanzaa. He was chair of the Black Studies program at California State University, Long Beach. During my years there (1994–1997), I was the only Black student in the program, and in 1997 I became the first Black person to graduate with my particular degree from that program. Even in the ’90s I was thinking: why are we still talking about “firsts” and “onlys”?I wanted to bridge storytelling with the legacy of slavery and survival—my own ancestors were from Virginia, where I was born and raised. Dr. Karenga taught me the concept of the *griot*—the storyteller—and the responsibility that comes with that. In the U.S., storytelling often gets treated as frivolous—an extracurricular, “nice to have.” A lot of Black parents, especially, don’t want their kids studying film, theater, or the liberal arts because it doesn’t seem like a stable livelihood. I started undergrad as an accounting major and didn’t tell my dad I’d switched to theater until graduation day—he found out when they called my name under the College of Arts instead of the College of Business. That’s the mindset I came from: my family wanted us to succeed, and the arts read as struggle, not a viable career.But there’s honor in being a storyteller. That idea changed how I saw theater.And it was the ’90s—*Rent* was happening, and I was in Los Angeles, flying back and forth to the East Coast to see Broadway shows that weren’t just entertaining; they were educating and changing lives. I remember *The Life*—not a massive hit, but it told the story of Black and Brown women working as call girls in New York City. You’d think, “Is that a Broadway story?” But the music was outstanding.And there were so many others—*Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk* with Savion Glover, looking at African American history through tap and music. During that period I really saw the power of storytelling—and the responsibility we have to tell stories that educate and change lives. BEN: That’s so powerful. The responsibility of storytelling to educate and change lives. TERÉSA: Yeah. BEN: It’s one of the things I’ve often thought as a teacher: I’m a storyteller. How do you construct a lesson so students are receptive? It’s like you’re telling a story over a unit, a curriculum, or even a single lesson. TERÉSA: When you engage with students and give them permission to share their stories, you’re not really “teaching” in the traditional sense anymore. It becomes more like peer engagement than “I’m the teacher, I know the things, and I’m telling you the things.”Students receive it differently when they feel you’re invested in who they are—not just their grade. BEN: There’s a great quote, I think it’s Roger Ebert films, but really stories are empathy machines. TERÉSA: Yeah. BEN: It allows us to walk in someone else’s shoes for a moment. There was a reconciliation group in Mississippi whose motto was: “Enemies are people whose stories we haven’t heard.” TERÉSA: Incredibly profound. When we think about fear, it’s often a lack of understanding—no connection to the thing you’re afraid of. Hearing stories can build that connection. BEN: Can you talk about the importance of media education? I’m a documentary filmmaker, documentary filmmaking in today’s world where so much of where we are in a post-truth society. TERÉSA: There are mechanics to telling the truth, and mechanics to telling a lie. In fiction you see this a lot—shows like *The Mentalist* or *Law & Order* where someone reads body language, eye movement, and so on to figure out whether someone is lying.What matters for media education is helping students understand the “tells” in information—how to challenge and debunk claims instead of assuming, “Someone told me a thing, so it must be true.”I didn’t fully appreciate how urgent that was until the pandemic, when early reporting was all over the place and a lot of it conflicted. Being able to sort honest, vetted information from dishonest or speculative claims mattered in a very concrete way—like realizing you probably shouldn’t drink bleach.Coming out of that period, teaching media studies has meant teaching reporting with integrity. You can’t just assume something is true—not because people are “bad,” but because people absorb information differently based on what they’ve experienced.I do a lecture with my senior capstone students on the difference between **knowledge** and **information**. Knowledge is shaped by culture, character, race, gender, where you grew up, what language you speak, what faith you practice—so it can carry bias. Information, on the other hand, is verifiable and can be vetted. 2 + 2 = 4 no matter who you are.Good storytelling—and good journalism—knows how to bridge knowledge and information with integrity. When I have journalism students who lean into opinion-driven news—whether it’s Fox, MSNBC, whatever—I tell them: that’s playing to an audience’s sensibilities. It can be entertaining, but it isn’t the same as straight reporting. Then there’s reporting that aims to be more information-based—“Here’s what happened today.” That also needs to be taught. We’re in a moment where students need tools to tell the truth, recognize lies, pick them apart, and trust their internal compass about what’s important to share.And Ben—my answers get long. You might have to cut me off. BEN: I’m going to cut you off when what you’re saying stops being interesting—so I doubt I’m going to cut you off.You’re the President of the University Film and Video Association. For listeners: what is UFVA? TERÉSA: UFVA is a nationally recognized organization of university and college educators and institutions focused on film, television, and media studies—both practice and theory. We’re a collective of makers and scholars. Our members hold a range of degrees—MAs, MFAs, MS degrees, PhDs, EdDs.As an organization, we examine how film and television are used—and we keep digging into how the field is evolving through innovation and emerging technology. Each year we host a conference (typica

    29 min

  3. 12/22/2025

    82. What Makes a Good Memoir with Ronit Plank

    A memoir is not what happened to you, but what you make of what happened, and why that matters now. Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, and The New York Times. Kirkus Reviews calls her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation”. About the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation, WHEN SHE COMES BACK earned Finalist in the Housatonic Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards and was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book of 2021. Ronit’s short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. Ronit teaches memoir writing for the University of Washington’s Continuum Program and independently, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and hosts the podcast and Substack Let’s Talk Memoir featuring interviews with memoirists about their writing process and creative life. Find everything on her webpage here. Things Ronit and I discuss in this conversation: * Ronit began as an actor and improviser (Actors Gang, Groundlings, Ensemble Studio Theater), and how that early training deeply shaped her instinct for narrative arc, subtext, and meaning-making in writing and editing * She resisted memoir for years because of common misconceptions: that memoir is boring, self-pitying, navel-gazing, or only justified if the writer is famous or uniquely traumatized * A turning point for her memoir When She Comes Back was realizing that if she didn’t tell her own story—about her mother leaving to follow a guru—someone else would frame it for her * Ronit articulated a core definition of memoir: it is not what happened to you, but what you make of what happened, and why it still has hooks in you now * The distinction between situation and story, and that memoir requires selectivity, tension, and a narrative question * Writers should ideally have emotional support while doing their work * Common reasons less engaging memoirs fail: repetition without escalation, trauma without meaning-making, and scenes that don’t change the narrator or move the story forward * The craft of scenes in memoir and why adverbs weaken prose * An assessment of publishing in 2026: traditional, indie, hybrid, university press, and self-publishing are all valid paths, and writers must define success based on their goals This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit benbo.substack.com

    1 hr

  4. 12/15/2025

    81. Matt Nothelfer On Running an Outstanding Film Festival

    When it just touches on these really profound themes and it’s moving in a way that catches you off guard. Matt Nothelfer is a Committee Member of the Borrego Springs Film Festival and working documentary filmmaker. In this conversation, Matt talks: * Why small, community-driven festivals like Borrego Springs offer some of the best experiences for indie filmmakers. * How the festival creates a filmmaker-friendly environment: lounge, home-baked food, networking, and long Q&As. * The “secret weapon” of Borrego Springs: a local audience that fills a 180-seat theater from morning to night. * Why early-bird submissions matter—and when they don’t. * How to spot scammy or low-value festivals on FilmFreeway through community presence, transparency, and online footprint. * Why filmmakers should focus more on storytelling and theme than technical perfection. * The blind-submission, five-category review process Borrego uses to evaluate films fairly. * Why small festivals often have the highest acceptance chances—300 submissions, 70–80 selections. * How writing a thoughtful, festival-specific cover letter can move a film from “maybe” to “yes.” * Advice to emerging filmmakers: avoid chasing 100 meaningless laurels and instead pursue festivals aligned with your goals. Thanks for reading The Creativity, Education, and Leadership Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Here is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation. Don’t come for me. BEN: Hi everyone. This is Ben Guest and this is The Creativity Education and Leadership Podcast. Today my guest is Matt Telfer, who is a committee member for the Borrego Springs Film Festival. In this interview, we talk all things film festival, how to run a filmmaker friendly festival, and tips and tricks for submitting to film festivals. Enjoy. Matt, thanks so much for joining the podcast today. MATT: My pleasure. Happy to be here. BEN: So, I always like to start with a fun question, senior year of high school, what music were you listening to MATT: right off the bat with a curve ball? Alright, let’s lay it out. I got the Talking Heads, BEN: the Cure, MATT: Like, let’s see, what else? BEN: New Wave. MATT: Yeah, a little bit of the punk stuff. I mean, we got Pixies were, was I listening to the Pixies then? I can’t remember. Yeah, so, uh, the Dead Milkman, stuff like that. The pubs, um, yeah, I had some of their records. You know, it’s really frustrating ‘cause I had those records up until like five years ago and I left them at a colleague’s house and they scattered to the wind. All that good stuff. Yeah. Anyway, I’m still a little bitter about that, but That’s okay. My colleagues, my colleague was a friend and he, he deserved them. BEN: So you are a committee member at the Borrego Springs Film Festival. What? Yes, sir. And, and you’ve, you’ve held a variety of roles there and, and off air, you’re saying sort of lately you’ve been focused on. You know, the pre-production of the festival, the website, getting the materials together. Correct? Correct. Reaching out to filmmakers, et cetera. Talk to me, talk to us about what are the fundamentals of running a good festival? MATT: Well, our context is that we’re super small and modest. Uh, like we were saying before the interview, uh, officially started, we are literally a, a tiny little village in the middle of a giant state park. Actually the biggest state park in the lower 48 states desert community. We’re actually just south of Palm Springs and, uh, there’s like 3000 full-time residents here and, uh. So running a film festival in a place where there’s literally. Not really a commercial market, it’s a different type of animal. And um, so we kind of do everything on a very tight budget and we try to personalize stuff as much as we possibly can. We, since we can’t really throw a lot of money at stuff, we just do everything we can in other dimensions. BEN: What’s an example of that? MATT: Just trying to be considerate about stuff, uh, being friendly to filmmakers that are willing to submit and to get, and that also get accepted. So when they come here, it’s a personalized experience. We work pretty hard on creating a filmmaker’s lounge where folks can gather and network with each other throughout the entire uh. Five days of our film festival and while they’re at the film festival and they’re talking to each other, we also have food available for ‘em. One of our great committee members, her name’s Pam, she literally will bake stuff in the evening and bring it in in the morning. So you have fresh pastries, cookies, coffee, like fruit vegetables, just everything laid out. And you know, there’s really not a huge expense to do that, but you need like the right people to do that, so that’s the thing that kind of makes our festival a little bit. Different, I guess in a way is like there’s a personalized aspect to it and we spread that type of attitude across all our stuff. So we’re gonna have like four parties during the entire festival, and all those parties have similar type of vibe. BEN: The reviews that I read online, um, on film freeway filmmakers were saying that it is, it’s a film, it’s a filmmaker friendly. Festival. MATT: Yeah. Because, you know, that’s what we can do. Mm-hmm. Like, you’re not gonna travel to a remote place in the desert and, you know, run into a bunch of industry folks. Usually there are exceptions to that. And, uh, as our. Film festival has gotten a little more solid, and we occasionally have some industry people coming in. Most of the time it’s indie filmmakers. You know, we might have some elbow rubbing that this kind of neat. But for the most part, you know, these are just small independent filmmakers trying to do their thing and. Wanting to share their films with an appreciative audience. And aside from, being very personable, uh, with the committee and with the staff that run the film festival, one of the great things about our particular film festival is that the community is a huge part of what we do. The event they show up, we have 180 seat theater and it’s full from 10:00 AM in the morning until eight o’clock at night. Oh wow. Every block and wow. It’s been that way since the beginning, and it’s not because of anything that we do on the committee, it’s simply because the community wants to be a part of it. And so that’s kind of our secret weapon, is like you show up as a filmmaker and like, oh man, I got, I got scheduled for the 10:00 AM block. They, and then they, they show up and like, what’s going on here? This is look back. And then at the end of it, you know, there’s an extended q and a. We don’t. Push our blocks back to back really tight and there’s plenty of time just to like relax and having interaction with folks and some q and as will go on for like a half an hour, if not more. And it’s just, you know, so that’s a unique thing that just kind of emerged without effort. And we take credit for it and we’re excited that we can offer that. But you know, it wasn’t any, it wasn’t by design, it was just kind of like, cool. This is working. BEN: As far as festivals go, it sounds like filmmaker heaven. MATT: Well, you try to, we definitely try to be. And the dude that got this whole thing rolling, his name’s Fred G and he has lived in this little community for a really long time, and he’s a great guy and he’s one of the reasons why a lot of people show up because, you know, he’s just one of those kind of like community, uh, he’s, he’ll be really upset if I use this phrase, but he’s like a town elder. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So just having that type of guidance and having that type of person that can kind of unify the entire event, I. Is really great. And again, like I said before, it’s kind of our secret weapon is that we have like this great community that’s willing to be a part of a filmmaker’s storytelling in so much as like they’ll sit there, they’ll react to it, they’ll ask questions about it afterwards. So yeah, if you’re. A filmmaker that wants your film to be seen by actual eyeballs and actual people that are engaged. Mm-hmm. Then film festivals like ours, which there are many around, around the world. You gotta search ‘em out. As a filmmaker, you’ve gotta. Start getting discriminating. You’ve gotta really pay attention to what films are film festivals are offering and try to be a part of those kinds of environments, if that’s what you want. BEN: So this is great because you’re, um, you are part of the Bgo Springs Film Festival, you’re also a working filmmaker. What are some other festivals that you’ve attended or know about that have a similar sort of filmmaker friendly vibe? MATT: Full Bloom film festival in North Carolina for sure. The WYO Film Festival in Wyoming, we enjoyed that a lot. My wife and I who are documentary filmmakers, we’ve taken our film films there. And again, you know, it’s the exact same recipe basically, you have a core group of citizens that are willing and able to show up and be a part of an event. So when you sh, when you arrive as a filmmaker and you sit in the audience, you’re not alone with, or if you’re in the audience and you’re only with other filmmakers there to screen their movie, you know? Yeah. You know that, you know that feeling. We’ve been there, right? We’ve been, we’ve all been there and, and we don’t. Film festival is like what we’re talking about right now. They don’t wanna offer that. They want it to be something, even if they sometimes fall short, which has happened with us, we’ve had blocks where, maybe there’s only 50 people in the audience and, you know, half of the audience might be filmmakers. But that is such a rare thing anymore. You just wanna be offering something to filmmakers. Make them feel appreciated

    45 min

  5. 12/08/2025

    80. Doc Film Editor Viridiana Lieberman

    Trusting the process is a really important way to free yourself, and the film, to discover what it is. Viridiana Lieberman is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. She recently edited the Netflix sensation The Perfect Neighbor. In this interview we talk: * Viri’s love of the film Contact * Immersion as the core goal in her filmmaking * Her editing tools and workflow * Film school reflections * The philosophy and process behind The Perfect Neighbor — crafting a fully immersive, evidence-only narrative and syncing all audio to its original image. * Her thoughts on notes and collaboration * Techniques for seeing a cut with fresh eyes You can see all of Viri’s credits on her IMD page here. Thanks for reading The Creativity, Education, and Leadership Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Here is an AI-generated transcript of our conversation. Don’t come for me. BEN: Viri, thank you so much for joining us today. VIRI: Oh, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. BEN: And I always like to start with a fun question. So senior year of high school, what music were you listening to? VIRI: Oh my goodness. Well, I’m class of 2000, so I mean. I don’t even know how to answer this question because I listen to everything. I’m like one of those people I was raving, so I had techno in my system. I have a lot of like, um. The, like, everything from Baby Ann to Tsta. Like, there was like, there was a lot, um, Oak and like Paul Oak and Full, there was like techno. Okay. Then there was folk music because I loved, so Ani DeFranco was the soundtrack of my life, you know, and I was listening to Tori Amos and all that. Okay. And then there’s like weird things that slip in, like fuel, you know, like whatever. Who was staying? I don’t remember when they came out. But the point is there was like all these intersections, whether I was raving or I was at Warp Tour or I was like at Lili Fair, all of those things were happening in my music taste and whenever I get to hear those songs and like that, that back late nineties, um, rolling into the Ox. Yeah. BEN: I love the Venn diagram of techno and folk music. VIRI: Yeah. BEN: Yeah. What, are you a fan of the film inside Lou and Davis? VIRI: Uh, yes. Yes. I need to watch it again. I watched it once and now you’re saying it, and I’m like writing it on my to-dos, BEN: but yes, it, it, the first time I saw it. I saw in the East Village, actually in the theater, and I just, I’m a Cohen Brothers fan, but I didn’t love it. Mm-hmm. But it, it stayed on my mind and yeah. Now I probably rewatch it once a year. It might, yeah. In my, in my, on my list, it might be their best film. It’s so good. Oh, VIRI: now I’m gonna, I’m putting it on my, I’m literally writing it on my, um, post-it to watch it. BEN: I’m VIRI: always looking for things to watch in the evening. BEN: What, what are some of the docs that kind of lit your flame, that really turned you on? VIRI: Uh, this is one of those questions that I, full transparency, get very embarrassed about because I actually did not have a path of documentary set for me from my film Loving Passion. I mean, when I graduated film school, the one thing I knew I didn’t wanna do was documentary, which is hilarious now. Hilarious. My parents laugh about it regularly. Um. Because I had not had a good documentary education. I mean, no one had shown me docs that felt immersive and cinematic. I mean, I had seen docs that were smart, you know, that, but, but they felt, for me, they didn’t feel as emotional. They felt sterile. Like there were just, I had seen the most cliched, basic, ignorant read of doc. And so I, you know, I dreamed of making space epics and giant studio films. Contact was my favorite movie. I so like there was everything that about, you know, when I was in film school, you know, I was going to see those movies and I was just chasing that high, that sensory high, that cinematic experience. And I didn’t realize that documentaries could be. So it’s not, you know, ever since then have I seen docs that I think are incredible. Sure. But when I think about my origin tale, I think I was always chasing a pretty. Not classic, but you know, familiar cinematic lens of the time that I was raised in. But it was fiction. It was fiction movies. And I think when I found Docs, you know, when I was, the very long story short of that is I was looking for a job and had a friend who made docs and I was like, put me in coach, you know, as an editor. And she was like, you’ve never cut a documentary before. I love you. Uh, but not today. But no, she hired me as an archival producer and then I worked my way up and I said, no, okay, blah, blah, blah. So that path showed me, like I started working on documentaries, seeing more documentaries, and then I was always chasing that cinema high, which by the way, documentaries do incredibly, you know, and have for many decades. But I hadn’t met them yet. And I think that really informs. What I love to do in Docs, you know, I mean, I think like I, there’s a lot that I like to, but one thing that is very important to me is creating that journey, creating this, you know, following the emotion, creating big moments, you know, that can really consume us. And it’s not just about, I mean, not that there are films that are important to me, just about arguments and unpacking and education. At the same time, we have the opportunity to do so much more as storytellers and docs and we are doing it anyway. So that’s, that’s, you know, when, it’s funny, when light my fire, I immediately think of all the fiction films I love and not docs, which I feel ashamed about. ‘cause now I know, you know, I know so many incredible documentary filmmakers that light my fire. Um, but my, my impulse is still in the fiction world. BEN: Used a word that it’s such an important word, which is immersion. And I, I first saw you speak, um, a week or two ago at the doc NYC Pro panel for editors, documentary editors about the perfect neighbor, which I wanna talk about in a bit because talk about a completely immersive experience. But thank you first, uh, contact, what, what is it about contact that you responded to? VIRI: Oh my goodness. I, well, I watched it growing up. I mean, with my dad, we’re both sci-fi people. Like he got me into that. I mean, we’re both, I mean he, you know, I was raised by him so clearly it stuck around contact for me. I think even to this day is still my favorite movie. And it, even though I’m kind of a style nut now, and it’s, and it feels classic in its approach, but. There’s something about all the layers at play in that film. Like there is this crazy big journey, but it’s also engaging in a really smart conversation, right? Between science and faith and some of the greatest lines from that film. Are lines that you can say to yourself on the daily basis to remind yourself of like, where we are, what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, even down to the most basic, you know, funny, I thought the world was what we make it, you know, it’s like all of these lines from contact that stick with me when he says, you know, um, did you love your father? Prove it. You know, it’s like, what? What is proof? You know? So there were so many. Moments in that film. And for me, you know, climbing into that vessel and traveling through space and when she’s floating and she sees the galaxy and she says they should have sent a poet, you know, and you’re thinking about like the layers of this experience and how the aliens spoilers, um, you know, show up and talk to her in that conversation herself. Anyways, it’s one of those. For me, kind of love letters to the human race and earth and what makes us tick and the complexity of identity all in this incredible journey that feels so. Big yet is boiled down to Jody Foster’s very personal narrative, right? Like, it’s like all, it just checks so many boxes and still feels like a spectacle. And so the balance, uh, you know, I, I do feel my instincts normally are to zoom in and feel incredibly personal. And I love kind of small stories that represent so much and that film in so many ways does that, and all the other things too. So I’m like, how did we get there? But I really, I can’t, I don’t know what it is. I can’t shake that film. It’s not, you know, there’s a lot of films that have informed, you know, things I love and take me out to the fringe and take me to the mainstream and, you know, on my candy and, you know, all those things. And yet that, that film checks all the boxes for me. BEN: I remember seeing it in the theaters and you know everything you said. Plus you have a master filmmaker at the absolute top Oh god. Of his class. Oh my, VIRI: yes, BEN: yes. I mean, that mirror shot. Know, know, I mean, my jaw was on the ground because this is like, right, right. As CGI is started. Yes. So, I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen the behind the scenes of how they VIRI: Yeah. BEN: Incredible. VIRI: Years. Years. We would be sitting around talking about how no one could figure out how he did it for years. Anybody I met who saw contact would be like, but how did they do the mirror shot? Like I nobody had kind of, yeah. Anyways, it was incredible. And you know, it’s, and I, BEN: I saw, I saw it just with some civilians, right? Like the mirror shot. They’re like, what are you talking about? The what? Huh? VIRI: Oh, it’s so funny you bring that up because right now, you know, I went a friend, I have a friend who’s a super fan of Wicked. We went for Wicked for Good, and there is a sequence in that film where they do the mirror jot over and over and over. It’s like the, it’s like the. Special device of that. It feels that way. That it’s like the special scene with Glenda and her song. And someone next to me was sitting there and I heard him under his breath go, wow. Like he was r

    54 min

  6. 11/18/2025

    79. Film Festival Director Rudi Womack

    They put in their cover letter, “Honestly, we’re just gonna go up to Yellowstone around that time and we would love to swing by and show the movie.” Rudi Womack is the Director of the Wyoming International Film Festival and the creator of the YouTube channel The Film Festival Guide. In this conversation, Rudi talks about: * What watching thousands of film festival submissions has taught him about good storytelling * The biggest mistake filmmakers make when they submit to festivals * Why transparency matters and why he published all of the submission and acceptance stats for the Wyoming International Film Festival * The importance of a compelling poster and thumbnail * How to write a good description of your movie * The most important questions filmmakers must ask Here is a link to Hiike, the new film festival submission platform that Rudi mentioned. If you enjoyed this episode please forward to a friend. Here is an AI-generated transcript of my interview with Rudi. Don’t come for me. 79. Film Festival Director Rudi Womack BEN: Hi everyone. This is Ben Guest and this is The Creativity Education and Leadership Podcast. My guest today is Rudy Womack, who is the director of the Wyoming International Film Festival, and also Rudy has a fantastic YouTube page called The Film Festival Guide. So for all my filmmakers out there who are interested in submitting to festivals in this interview and on Rudy’s YouTube page, he breaks it down. Enjoy. Rudi, thank you so much for joining us. RUDI: Hey, it’s my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. BEN: So I always start off with a fun question, and we’re entering the holiday season, so very important holiday question. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? RUDI: Absolutely. A hundred percent. Come on. BEN: I love it. So I, I told you this off Air, I found you through the Rate YouTube channel. You have the Film Festival Guide. Is that the right name? I wanna make sure I get the name right. Yeah. The film RUDI: festival guide. Yep. BEN: On YouTube Film Festival Guide on YouTube. Please. Any filmmakers out there go and subscribe. The information is so helpful. What, why did you start the this YouTube page? RUDI: I, as a filmmaker have gone through the festival circuit several times and I made a lot of amateur mistakes. I didn’t know what I was doing. Definitely fell on my face a couple of times, but I also had some successes. And as I did more film festivals, I started learning more about the circuit. I got invited by a film festival to become a programmer, and so I started reviewing a lot of films and seeing a lot of the submissions. And I think instantly that made me a better filmmaker just because I saw what was working, what wasn’t working, and how other filmmakers really brought to, brought their stories to life on the screen. And it, it was truly inspirational. Very long story short, the Wyoming International Film Festival was started by a gentleman named Alan Oi, and he’s a, he’s a documentarian out of Wyoming, which is where I’m from. I’m from Wyoming. So Alan had the film festival and he had run it for some years and it was going great and everything. But then Alan retired and now he’s retiring. He wants to move outta Wyoming and he doesn’t wanna run a live event. ‘cause it is a lot of work in his words. And I quote, it’s a young man’s game. And at the same time, COVID hit and he didn’t wanna do the whole online thing and it was just a big mess. So Alan was like, I’m done with the festival, it’s done. I’m just gonna let it die. And I was begging him, no, Alan, you can’t do it. It’s so important for indie filmmakers. And at the time I’m just finding my feet in the festival circuit as well as both a filmmaker and now I’m a programmer. I’m begging him like don’t let it die. It’s important, maybe I can help out. And he was like, why don’t you run it? And I was like, absolutely not, man. What are you talking about? That’s crazy. No way. No way. And I was like, I’m going to be your director of programming. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m gonna help you get films in so you don’t have to do that work. Very long story short, I ended up running it. I ended up taking over the festival from Alan. I did so reluctantly. But when I started working with the festival, working with the community, working with my hometown filmmakers and my home state filmmakers, and just seeing how important a film festival can be for a local community to uplift indie filmmakers to help them along the way I fell in love with it and here I am now, I run the film festival. And your question was, how did I start the YouTube channel? Sorry, I’m getting there. But I got a lot of questions from filmmakers about festivals, like how to navigate ‘em. And there’s just so much mystery behind film festivals ‘cause it’s so opaque. There’s not a lot of transparency from film festivals. Film festivals are sketchy about which films they do select and which they don’t. And frankly, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about festivals. So I started answering a lot of questions and I started repeatedly answering the same question again and again and again. And I had some friends who told me, you should write a book. But I was like, yeah, but books, there are books, like people have already written books, bluntly, frankly, people far more experienced and knowledgeable than myself have written books. And so if you’re not reading those books, then you’re probably not gonna read my book. So that’s when I decided, you know what, the YouTube channel is a great way to just do very easy outreach. Take one single topic, break it down for 10 minutes, and hopefully help filmmakers along on their film festival journey. BEN: I love it. And you said something for all the filmmakers who are listening. I’m gonna come back to it. Don’t worry. You said something about once you started programming and watching so many films, you got a good sense of what works and what doesn’t. So I definitely wanna come back to that. I know the filmmakers listening want to hear that. But before that you mentioned 10 minute videos. You strike me as somebody who, does research and takes time to Yes. Before they do something. What did you discover about running a YouTube page? What things work, what things don’t work? RUDI: I’m still very early on in my own YouTube development. I’m still trying to learn what does and doesn’t work. So I’m probably the worst person on earth to give advice. Definitely that first 32nd hook is so important on YouTube, just like it is on a film that, that intro, how we come into the story, whatever, on YouTube, you can see a massive drop off and apparently it’s that way on every channel. Again, I’m not a YouTube guru, so I don’t give advice, but that first 32nd hook is a big deal, but also just my presence on camera. I come from the post world. I’m an editor, so I’m not just behind camera. I’m behind, behind the camera. So I’m very much not used to an on-camera presence, so I’m developing that and learning it as well. What kind of energy I can bring. How to make it engaging. But also I don’t wanna be zany and too quirky or anything because I am trying to give good guidance to filmmakers, but I also don’t want to lecture them and bore them to death. So it’s finding that balance of information that’s valuable, but also entertaining enough that people don’t wanna click off. And it’s actually quite a complex thing that I’m still unraveling one video at a time. But the best advice that I saw was some YouTube guru who is just focus on getting 1% better on every single video. So is that little bit better graphics or better delivery, or better audio, or better editing or whatever it is. And after a hundred videos, you’re now a hundred percent better. So that’s what I’ve been focusing on. Just very small baby steps. BEN: Yeah, that’s such a great way to break it down, right? It just makes it bite-sized, get 1% better. RUDI: I think you can apply that to life in general. There’s a lot of things in life just today be 1% better. That’s it, BEN: so you mentioned once you start a programming scene, get enough feel for what works, what doesn’t, especially with short films, both narrative and docs. What are you seeing that works and doesn’t work? RUDI: In the shorts world I’m seeing a couple of things. One, a self-contained story, and this is something that I had a problem with because oftentimes I would go for more of a quote unquote scene instead of a full beginning, middle and in, in a story. So a self-contained story typically is gonna make your short film much more successful. This can be hard for some filmmakers because they’re trying to make a proof of concept short film that they’re gonna go and get financing for their future. So one of the things that they often do is they just take a scene outta their feature and then just shoot that, which has mixed results. And the problem is the films that have gotten financed and been made from shorts that have done that are the ones that you see. So it’s actually a survivor bias, where it’s like it, it works for those particular films and therefore everybody thinks it’s gonna work for their film. But obviously the films that it doesn’t work for, you’re never going to see. So you don’t understand, actually for the majority of films, it doesn’t work. So if you have a proof of concept, I actually say, don’t pull a scene outta your feature. I say write its own scene, or sorry, your own short film. That exists in the same world and universe with the same characters as what your feature film is. And I think that’s gonna have much more success on the film festival circuit. And that will lean you or lead you to whatever your goal is, financing or distribution or whatever. So that’s a big thing with short films that makes

    1h 7m

  7. 10/14/2025

    78. Leadership with Nelima Lassen

    We moved away from traditional staff meetings. Instead of everyone sharing updates, we play dodgeball or cook together or learn from each other’s departments. Building trust and connection is more important than sharing information. Nelima Lassen is the Principal of The International People’s College in Helsingør, Denmark. In this conversation Nelima and I talk: * What a Danish Folk School is * Tracy Chapman fandom * Core leadership values * Rethinking staff meetings * Approach to AI in 2025 * The amount of empathy students show each other * Bonus: Tracy Chapman performing Fast Car at Wembley Stadium. If you enjoyed this conversation please forward it to a friend. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit benbo.substack.com

    31 min

  8. 09/08/2025

    77. Making a Podcast with Matt Collins

    I had friends of mine who have said, “This is an important archive. Get everybody.” So that's my mission. It's a big one and it's going to take years. - Matt Collins Matt Collins is a graduate of Amherst College, Class of 1994. He is the creator and host of The Pre-Made Podcast where, every week, he interviews one member from his class. In this conversation Matt and I talk: * Significant pivot points in his life. * How he started The Pre-Made Podcast. * How he produces the podcast, including initial outreach to potential guests, the equipment he uses, and thoughts about editing. * How podcasting is different from what he thought podcasting was going to be. * Things he’s learned from doing the podcast. * Tips for being a good editor. If you enjoyed this interview please forward it to one friend. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit benbo.substack.com

    34 min
See All (84)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Conversations about creativity, education, and leadership. benbo.substack.com

Information