LISA MILLS FILMS
Orlando and its tourist destinations impose a celebratory narrative on Central Florida, but dark corners of history eveal both incidents and systems of racial violence and injustice. Hymns of Three Cities intersects poetry with film to reveal a personal narrative surrounding three cities that have chosen either to forget, ignore, or displace what happened decades ago. The poetry of Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright is accompanied by images past and present to help us discover and come to terms with our collective memory.
Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright (the poet), a native of Sanford, Florida, is a graduate of St. Petersburg College and Florida Atlantic University; he received his Master's in English from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University) and his Ph.D. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Wright taught English, American Literature, African American History, Speech, and Creative Writing at Seminole State College. He is the Founder and President of the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Assoc. of Florida and Editor of Revelry: The Literary Voice of The Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Association.
He has served as a grants reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities and as a Literature Fellowship Panelist for the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Wright, who read his poetry at the Library of Congress, is also the editor of On Gwendolyn Brooks: Reliant Contemplation (University of Michigan Press). and the author of ten chapbooks and three poetry collections: his short stories and essays have appeared innumerous publications. His most recent publication is Up Through the Years: Reflective Glimpses of Sanford, Florida (2014).
Dr. Lisa Mills (the filmmaker), a native of Jacksonville, Florida, earned her BA in English from Jacksonville University, her MA in Mass Communication from the University of Central Florida, and her Ph.D. in Political Communication from the University of Florida.
Mills teaches non-fiction film production and story theory in the film program of the School of Visual Art and Design at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.
She makes documentary films, and her work has screened in film festivals all over the world and won several regional and national awards. Her recent documentary about Florida's exulsion of LGBT students from public universities in the 1960's, The Committee, will air on public television stations across the U.S. in 2016.