IDENTITY: RICHMOND
www.myspace.com/identity_richmond
Richmond, River City, Fist City, Cap City, Richtown, Virginia
About
Identity: Richmond is a documentary by two student filmmakers, Sera Tabb and Jon Headlee. Both of us are students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU); Sera is studying English and Communication Arts, while Jon is studying Psychology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies.
Our documentary is focused on exploring the identity of Richmond, it's meta-culture, it's sub-cultures and counter-cultures, as well as the historical, religious, and ideological values that continue to shape it.
While there are bound to be disagreements, our working hypothesis is that Richmond is in an identity crisis. The meta-culture of Richmond is straining under the growing independence of it's sub-cultures. This could be due to many reasons: improper adjustment to the cultural movements of the past century (like sub-urbanism, civil-rights movements, etc.), a growing resentment towards historical roots (Richmond's status as ex-Confederate Capital), disillusionment with Big-Tobacco (Richmond was, and yet still may be, the tobacco capital of the WORLD), or just the lack of a stable social structure to bind Richmond together.
On the other hand, Richmond's sagging meta-culture has allowed new groups to emerge, counter-cultural and progressive groups that challenge the status-quo of 300 hundred years of conservative, traditional values. The rise of liberalism in Richmond (which is surrounded by a more conservative Virginia), has no doubt led to cultural conflict.
Is this conflict good or bad? Find out with us as we spend the next few years exploring the vast identity of Richmond (and all of its collective members). Is Richmond going through an identity crisis? Ultimately that's up to you to decide, but we'd like to think that a crisis isn't necessarily a bad thing.
For more information, check out
Our interview with RVA Magazine
