0:00

Last week, we heard from Question boother's

0:02

about what home meant to them.

0:04

Some people said it was a place, others said

0:06

it was people or a community. But

0:08

what about people who have to leave their homes,

0:11

who have to come to a new and unfamiliar

0:13

place and start all over again. That's

0:15

the story of Clarkston, Georgia. Mm

0:19

hmmmm.

0:23

Welcome to the Question Booth. My name is Dylan Fagan

0:26

and I'm Kathleen Coullian, and

0:28

we had the opportunity to speak with

0:30

an incredible local filmmaker, Aaron

0:33

Bernhardt. Aaron is the producer

0:35

and co director of the new documentary Clarkston.

0:38

Clarkson, Georgia is the most diverse

0:40

square mile in the country, now

0:43

home to over one hundred and fifty different

0:45

ethnicities. The film is in

0:47

production right now. Aaron and her crewe

0:49

are following fifteen subjects and documenting

0:51

their day to day lives in Clarkston. YEA,

0:54

so let's listen in on our conversation.

0:57

M M.

1:00

I always wanted to be a journalist growing

1:02

up UM and in college

1:05

at the University of Virginia, did a lot of television

1:07

news and radio news, and

1:10

then I was deciding between

1:12

did I wanna. I really wanted to be just like

1:14

Christian alm import international correspondent,

1:17

and I didn't know if I should get there through

1:20

going international or going to local news,

1:22

because they would both kind of get me to the same point.

1:25

So I got a job at the ABC

1:27

affiliate in Augusta, Georgia and in

1:29

the Peace Corps in Madagascar, and

1:31

I chose the Peace Corps. So I moved

1:33

to Africa, and then um we got

1:36

evacuated. I came home to Atlanta and

1:38

started working at CNN. So

1:40

I worked up through production

1:43

there and ended up being a writer and producer

1:45

at CNN, and then left to make my

1:47

first documentary feature film, Emba

1:50

means saying really really exciting. Um,

1:52

how far that film went, how many

1:54

people it's touched. And it's about the Grammy nominated

1:57

African children's choir. Another

1:59

reason why I don't like my voice, because

2:01

I compare it to theirs. UM.

2:04

So I made that film. It was the

2:06

best and worst experience of my life. And

2:09

so because of the worst parts, I

2:11

decided I was going to be a one hit wonder

2:13

and that was it. Um. And so I

2:16

did a few other jobs. Um. I

2:18

was still kind of missing that storytelling

2:21

aspect. Um. Once you do it,

2:23

it's hard to ever not do it. But

2:26

I had a good work life balance for the first

2:28

time in my life, and so that was good. Um

2:31

and then when the white supremacist

2:33

went to Charlottesville this past

2:35

August, so about a year ago, I

2:38

went to v A. I studied civil rights

2:40

at v A. So seeing the

2:42

white supremacist there, people

2:44

even our own age, like young white

2:47

supremacist, I it just

2:49

blew my mind in the worst way. And

2:51

I couldn't except not

2:54

spending the rest of my days

2:56

in the near future spending all

2:58

day every day working to stop the

3:00

white supremacists from becoming

3:03

white supremacist. UM. So

3:05

I had been talking with another filmmaker,

3:08

Joseph East, who's my co director on this, about

3:11

doing something in Clarkston. We weren't really sure

3:13

what we had been kind of talking about it for years.

3:16

Um. We were both really passionate about Clarkston.

3:18

I first discovered Clarkston over

3:21

ten years ago when I got home from the Peace Corps.

3:24

I started volunteering and Clarkston

3:26

with the Fujis soccer team, tutoring the kids.

3:28

UM. My husband and I are second date ever

3:31

was volunteering in Clarkston, So it's

3:33

been a really special place for me, and

3:36

I knew I wanted to tell a story about it, but I didn't

3:38

know how. So then when everything happened

3:40

in Charlottesville, it just seemed perfect,

3:42

Like the opposite of hate is Clarkston,

3:45

Georgia. So being able to tell their

3:47

stories what we decided to do.

3:49

Yeah, can you tell me a little bit about

3:52

how you started your idea for the

3:54

film and just like decided to go into production

3:56

because you said earlier you know you wanted to tell the story,

3:58

but you just didn't know how. Yeah, So we looked

4:01

at we thought it would be really cool to make a documentary

4:03

series there, which we still want to do

4:06

um. But we also realized that Joseph and

4:08

I each had one successful documentary

4:10

feature film under our belts, so it made

4:12

the most sense to just do that. So

4:15

our hope is that this one documentary

4:17

feature film will be so successful

4:19

that then someone will have us make a series

4:21

about Clarkston and or similar places

4:24

around the country and world, because

4:26

the story isn't just ninety minutes.

4:28

I mean, there's just so much more to it.

4:31

So in August everything

4:34

happened then in September, I

4:36

had quit everything else that I was doing

4:38

to go full steam ahead on Clarkston, which

4:40

is our working title, UM, and just

4:42

started spending all day every day there.

4:45

So we would shoot a lot, but also

4:47

I would just spend you know, twelve fifteen

4:49

hours a day meeting with people and meeting

4:52

with Matt, refuge coffee, meeting with them in

4:54

their homes, the community center, the

4:56

free clinics there, everywhere,

4:58

UM, lots of really cool after school programs.

5:01

So found over

5:03

a hundred people that had really

5:05

interesting stories. I mean, there's thirteen thousand

5:07

people that lived there who all have really interesting

5:10

stories, but found well over

5:12

a hundred who were interested in sharing those

5:14

with us on film. So we started

5:16

chasing all of those. So

5:18

it was a really tough start

5:21

because we are just filming so much

5:23

UM and then so that we wouldn't

5:26

get burnt out, we started narrowing it

5:28

down to sixty and then thirty,

5:30

and now we have about fifteen people that

5:32

we follow pretty regularly. Wow,

5:35

that's incredible. Yeah, there's so many stories to tell

5:37

that I feel like it must have been very

5:39

hard. It's still hard, still

5:41

hard to cut down to those fifteen. I

5:44

love that you're able to feature

5:47

a place in Georgia where unfortunately

5:49

people had to make a new home. But

5:52

it seems like there's so much love

5:54

there in community and strength, and

5:57

our participants really touched on that when they

5:59

came into the booth and when we asked them what home

6:01

meant to them, It kind of evolved in this not

6:04

such a physical place, but the

6:06

community and the people who they loved,

6:08

they were able to build. And I really see that

6:10

happening in Clarkston. Yeah,

6:13

well, I want to go back to one other and unfortunate

6:16

that I thought you were referring to first.

6:18

So unfortunately the

6:21

reason why Clarkson became

6:23

Clarkson. So most people when they meet

6:25

me, their first question is, how is Clarkson

6:27

Clarkson? How did this happen? And that's

6:30

actually an unfortunate story, um,

6:32

but it's turned into this really beautiful

6:35

thing. So the South

6:38

is one thing I love about the film is that

6:40

we're showing this really beautiful, positive

6:43

human rights, civil rights story coming out

6:45

of the South, specifically out of Metro

6:47

Atlanta, which has this rich,

6:49

beautiful history and past of really

6:52

amazing civil and human rights coming out

6:55

of this this city in this region. But

6:58

that all happened as bad things happened,

7:01

right. So one of

7:03

the reasons why Clarkson became Clarkson

7:05

is because Clarkson's existed since I think

7:07

eighteen eighty two. Um, it's been a

7:09

railroad town, primarily white for its

7:12

whole history. Um, it's just nestled

7:14

right between Decatur where Emery is in Stone

7:16

Mountain where the KKK was

7:19

revitalized, and I believe nineteen

7:21

fifteen. So in nineteen

7:23

seventy, Clarkston High School

7:26

integrated and a lot

7:28

of white people did what we call white

7:30

flight, and a lot of them moved over to Stone

7:32

Mountain, one town over. Um.

7:34

And as a few black families

7:36

in black youth started going to the

7:38

schools, less and less white people were there,

7:41

and not that many more other people moved

7:43

there. And then Atlanta,

7:45

the metro area had this boom

7:48

of development right after that in

7:50

the late seventies where just people

7:52

just built tons and tons of apartment complexes.

7:55

So in nineteen eighty, when the USA

7:58

and the Refugee Act, every state in

8:00

America got to decide how many refugees

8:02

to take and we're gonna put them. And these were Vietnamese

8:04

refugees and a refugee is someone

8:06

who is forced to flee and

8:08

who the US actually invites to come here.

8:11

So they're not immigrants, their

8:13

refugees and it's a legal status.

8:16

So these Vietnamese refugees, many of whom

8:18

fought with for the US government

8:20

with the US government in Vietnam,

8:23

so they fought for our flag. Um,

8:25

they came to Georgia, and Georgia

8:28

decided to put them in Clarkston because Clarkson had

8:30

lots of empty apartment complexes

8:32

that were affordable, and a community

8:35

college and a technical college there.

8:38

Um, and it's just at the intersection of a lot

8:40

of major highways. So so that's one

8:43

unfortunate that turned into something beautiful. Then

8:45

the other unfortunate is that these

8:48

thousands and tens of thousands of people

8:51

um, Clarkston has welcomed as refugees

8:53

from over a hundred and fifty ethnicities

8:56

and over sixty countries around the world.

8:58

So unfortunately, these bowl were

9:00

forced to flee their homes, which means that

9:03

war, persecution and severe

9:05

violence was happening to them. So a

9:07

lot of the kids that we spent time with in Clarkston,

9:10

their schools were bombed. They've

9:12

seen bombs. So last night we watched

9:14

fireworks for the Fourth of

9:16

July with a lot of these kids, and I was really

9:18

nervous um because it's kind

9:20

of similar to a bomb, But they got

9:23

it. They've assimilated and their resilient. So

9:25

these people have come to Atlanta, to

9:27

Clarkson and it has become their new

9:30

home. And not only

9:32

are they survivors who have survived

9:34

these horrible atrocities, but they're

9:36

making Clarkson and our whole region

9:39

now thrive. Yeah, and it's

9:41

so beautiful. It is, like you said, it's upsetting

9:43

that terrible events had to lead to

9:46

such strength and community and growth, but

9:49

it is just so amazing that that's what's happening

9:51

now in the South, which is

9:53

so important because I think it's such an important

9:55

side to show that there's still so much growth

9:58

coming slowly but surely.

10:05

We'll be right back with more from Aaron after

10:07

a quick break. M

10:19

hm hmm.

10:22

Of the individuals you're following for the film,

10:24

can you give us kind of the

10:26

background of any of them.

10:29

So one of them is Mama Mina.

10:32

She's eighty nine. She's the mom of

10:34

Clarkston. She'll be ninety

10:36

on Halloween. Um So, Halloween

10:38

will mark her ninety birthday. In her

10:41

tenth ear in the US, she's

10:43

working really hard on becoming a citizen right

10:45

now, so we're hoping to film that. Um

10:48

you can become a citizen after five years

10:50

here, but it costs um I think around

10:52

dollars, and you have to pass a bunch of tests and everything

10:55

interviews. Um So, she

10:58

hasn't really had time to study for the US

11:00

because she spends all day every

11:02

day, eighty nine year old woman walking around

11:04

Clarkston helping people. So

11:08

last night, for example, I

11:11

was calling her and calling her, you know, Mama Mina,

11:13

where are you? I want to film you watching the fireworks

11:15

And she finally called back. She said, Aaron, I'm

11:17

so busy helping people. So

11:21

she's amazing. She lost her whole

11:23

family, her husband, extended

11:26

family, and her ten children she

11:28

lost to machete violence in Mogadishu,

11:31

Somalia um

11:33

in the early nineties. So

11:36

her way of dealing with that loss

11:38

is by putting every ounce of energy

11:41

in her eighty nine year old body, which is a

11:43

lot of energy. She says she feels like she's twenty

11:45

one into helping people,

11:48

and she considers everyone she meets

11:50

her child and that's how she deals with that

11:52

she lost her real children. So

11:55

she's one. UM. We have

11:58

have All Dr haval Kelly, who

12:00

has gotten a lot of presce attention recently.

12:03

He was on the front page of the Washington

12:05

Post a couple of weeks ago because

12:07

he has become friends with a former white supremacist,

12:10

a guy who was the head of security

12:13

for the State of Georgia for the KKK, Chris

12:17

Buckley, and Chris has

12:19

left the KKK and teamed up with

12:21

have All to help he'll

12:24

hate. So we're filming the two of

12:26

them on that journey, which is really really incredible.

12:30

UM. And then we kind

12:32

of focus a lot on Amina's world

12:34

and have All's world and all the people that they

12:37

touch through their world. So have

12:39

All is a doctor. He's a

12:41

cardiology fellow at Emory and he

12:44

he really doesn't want to be the exception.

12:47

He wants to be the rule. So he's

12:49

working really hard to make that happen.

12:52

So he started something called the Young Physicians

12:54

Initiative, which is in Clarkston High School

12:56

and then a lot of other Title

12:58

one high schools now a cross Atlanta where

13:01

more House and Emory med students

13:03

mentor and have an after school

13:06

program for these high schoolers who probably don't

13:08

have doctors in their lives. Um

13:10

maybe they have a doctor that they go to, but they don't

13:12

know one socially. Um.

13:14

So they mentor these young high

13:17

schoolers and teach them what it takes

13:19

to get to med school to become a doctor,

13:21

or they even do. We filmed them doing

13:23

test dr cases at Clarkson

13:26

High School. UM so,

13:28

just it's just so rich. Oh

13:31

my gosh, that all sounds so amazing,

13:33

but like very hard thinks

13:36

are unfathomable, but something

13:39

so beautiful coming from that. Well.

13:42

I always like to ask the question

13:45

that we ask our participants to the people

13:47

we bring in for these interviews. Um,

13:50

Aaron, what does home mean

13:52

to you? I think

13:54

home mm hmm, it's

13:56

so hard. I

13:59

was born and raised here and

14:01

I'm back and I never thought I would

14:03

be back here because Atlanta

14:05

was home and I have just a really adventurous

14:08

spirit, so I never I wanted to just

14:10

have the world be my home, and that's

14:12

why I went to Virginia and Africa and

14:15

then just landed here and things kept

14:17

keeping me here. But I don't

14:19

think it just Atlanta's home. I really

14:22

do feel like the world is home. I

14:25

feel just at home. And you

14:27

know, a mud hut with a tin roof and

14:30

rural Uganda as I do,

14:33

you know, with friends

14:35

and family in Blackhead, and those two

14:37

worlds are so different, but

14:40

what they have in common is people I love.

14:43

So I think home is just being

14:45

with people you love. I have a puppy. Now

14:48

I guess he's too, so I don't know if he's still a puppy,

14:50

but yeah, Sabo,

14:53

Sabo means dude in in

14:55

Luganda, Sabo

14:57

is definitely home. Um.

15:00

Just being with him anywhere feels

15:03

like home. I wish I could take him around the world

15:05

with me, because now when I'm

15:07

not with him, I don't feel home. So

15:09

maybe that's really how you know what home

15:11

is is knowing what's not home. Um,

15:15

So being without say Bo's not

15:18

home. So it's

15:20

interesting. There was a film I haven't seen it yet

15:22

that came out at Sundance this year UM

15:25

that a bunch of cities and refugee

15:27

organizations have been screening. That's

15:29

called This Is Home, and it's about

15:32

Syrian refugees coming to Baltimore,

15:35

UM before, during, and

15:37

after the travel Ban, so

15:40

it's kind of an interesting title to go with.

15:43

That's extremely powerful. Yeah, and one

15:46

challenge that we're taking is that

15:48

we don't want our film to be like any other film.

15:51

So all the films like this as Home,

15:53

Um, we are working really hard

15:55

to see what stories have they told, and they

15:58

really tell the journey of Huming

16:00

to America. So we did at first go

16:02

to the airport and film families

16:05

just landing in Hartsfield Jackson and all

16:07

of that, but there are other films that tell that

16:09

story. And so we know that Clarkston

16:12

is so unique, um that really

16:14

no community in the world looks like it.

16:17

So we want to tell the most unique story

16:19

possible because we have that opportunity with

16:21

Clarkston, and we just really want to do justice

16:24

to the people in Clarkson and make them feel

16:26

like when they watch our film

16:28

that it feels like home. Yeah. I

16:30

mean that's what the stories you've

16:32

told already and highlighted. I mean, it's their

16:34

all on their own like that hasn't been told.

16:36

So that's very exciting that you'll

16:38

be able to tell that story. I

16:41

did. We'll

16:45

have more question booth after the break m

16:59

H.

17:02

So Clarkston is

17:04

this square mile in size one point

17:06

four. It's amazing just inside

17:09

of that space, how much

17:11

there is to tell. And you've

17:15

told us a lot of great things about Clarkson,

17:17

But I wonder, is there anything else that you for

17:20

listeners who may not be from Georgia or

17:22

may not be familiar with

17:24

Clarkston before today, There anything

17:26

else you'd want them to know about Clarkston.

17:29

Well, not only do non

17:31

Georgians know about Clarkson, but almost

17:34

everyone we meet doesn't know about Clarkson.

17:36

And when I tell people how it's

17:39

so cool to tell a story that's only fifteen

17:41

minutes from my house, they're like, what, Clarkson's

17:44

only fifteen minutes from Atlanta. Um,

17:47

Clarkston is metro Atlanta,

17:49

but it's definitely its own city,

17:51

has its own mayor and its own specially

17:54

unique sense of everything. Though

17:56

Atlanta is a welcoming city as well,

17:59

which only mayor mayor

18:01

yeah, young hip mayor exactly

18:04

a millennial mayor. Clarkson was in

18:06

November became the first city in America

18:08

with a majority elected millennial

18:10

body, So the majority of elected

18:13

officials in the city of Clarkson or millennials.

18:16

There are also former refugees

18:18

on City Council. There's a former refugee

18:21

in the police force. UM.

18:23

And what former refugee means is that they

18:25

came here as refugees and then they became

18:27

American citizens. So they're really

18:30

but we call everyone in Clarkson new Americans

18:32

because they are UM

18:34

and a lot of people there. So we're

18:36

also doing a workforce development program

18:39

with the film where we're training people

18:41

and Clarkson and filmmaking UM

18:44

and then paying them to work on our team

18:46

and then will eventually help them get

18:48

more jobs in the industry. One of them

18:51

is Abdual and Abdul

18:53

is Ethiopian, but he has never been Ethiopia.

18:56

Who was born and raised in a refugee camp and

18:58

Kakuma and Ken Yeah,

19:00

and he came here too and a half years ago and

19:03

in two and a half more years when becomes an American

19:05

citizen, it will be his first time ever belonging

19:07

to a country. Yeah.

19:10

So so talk about home.

19:13

I mean, this is his first home and

19:15

he's twenty six. UM.

19:18

But what else do I want people to know about Clarkson.

19:21

UM. There's really good food

19:24

from lots of ethnicities, really

19:26

good coffee UM,

19:28

and it's so welcoming. When we had

19:31

this situation. Um,

19:33

in May, we had a guy,

19:36

a man who was running for governor.

19:39

His name is Michael Williams. He had three percent

19:42

um that two days or three days

19:44

before the election, he was at three percent, and so

19:46

kind of in a last sitch effort to

19:49

get notoriety and name recognition.

19:51

Perhaps I don't know why he did it, but this is

19:53

what other media outlets are saying. He

19:57

got a school bus and painted it and called it

19:59

the deportation bus. And he

20:02

came to Clarkston. And

20:05

I don't know how no one told him, but there's

20:07

really no one in Clarkston to deport because

20:09

there are no illegal immigrants

20:12

there. Maybe there are one or two, but

20:14

I know a lot of people in Clarkson and

20:16

they're very illegal, and

20:19

we invited them here. So they didn't even

20:21

come here by choice. Um. They

20:23

would all much rather be in their home countries

20:26

than here. Um. But obviously

20:28

their homes don't exist anymore

20:30

in many cases, or their families.

20:33

So he brought this deportation bus

20:35

to Clarkston. A lot of people in Clarkson were

20:37

really scared because a lot of refugees.

20:39

There's these incredible nonprofits and agencies

20:42

and volunteers teaching them their rights.

20:44

But if some man says I'm coming

20:46

to Clarkston, Georgia with a deportation bus,

20:49

and you hear about a Muslim travel band and

20:51

all these things, you're you're scared.

20:53

So we went and we filmed the reaction the

20:56

day it was announced, and then we filmed the actual

20:59

occurrence, and I

21:01

would say around a hundred and fifty peaceful

21:03

protesters came out in opposition

21:05

of him. Super diverse array

21:08

of people. Um, and every

21:10

one of them that actually lived in Clarkston,

21:12

whether they were white Americans,

21:15

Black Americans, or had come here recently

21:17

from other countries as immigrants or refugees

21:20

or migrants or asylum seekers or

21:22

on special immigration visas, they

21:25

all actually welcomed him. Um.

21:27

They even had a sign that said, welcome Michael

21:29

Williams. Everyone is welcome here. Have

21:32

all's mom made him back lava

21:34

but they ate together. Um,

21:37

So that's Clarkston just welcoming.

21:41

Wow. It's great to hear about

21:43

a community, especially one like we said,

21:45

this so close to Atlanta, and the Atlanta is a welcoming

21:47

place, but that feels like a whole

21:50

another level of welcome, a level

21:52

of back lava welcome. Yeah. I didn't

21:54

even know that existing, but now

21:56

I do. It was the day before Ramadan

21:58

too, so have all was able to eat it with him.

22:01

Um, what's next for you? Yeah?

22:04

Oh, we've got six more months of filming,

22:07

so nothing's next. This is right

22:10

smack up in the middle of production.

22:13

Um, and it's it's going

22:15

really well. It's still really

22:18

challenging. I would put it in the same

22:20

category, close to IMBA

22:23

and best and worst all

22:25

at the same time. Um,

22:27

it's really hard, but it's

22:29

worth it. One more thing, where

22:31

can people follow along?

22:34

Yeah, we would love that. Um.

22:37

Clarkston Film dot Com is our website

22:39

and it links to all of our different social

22:41

media pages and we have a

22:43

special page with the Metro Ely in a

22:46

Chamber. They have a new digital

22:48

platform called thea um so

22:50

we have some behind the scenes videos

22:52

up there, specifically about our workforce development

22:55

program which is really fun. Um.

22:58

So yeah, please follow along. We have

23:00

an email list and part

23:02

of how documentary works as if you can

23:05

find your audience early then it

23:07

makes it a lot easier to raise

23:10

support to continue going. So we

23:12

would love everyone to to join us.

23:15

On the journey Now, m H.

23:21

That was Aaron Bernhardt. We'd like to thank

23:23

her for speaking with us and we hope you'll check

23:26

out her work. Tell us what you think, share

23:28

your stories with us. We love getting your emails.

23:30

You can send them to the Question Booth at house to

23:32

works dot com. We're a Question Underscore

23:35

booth on Twitter and the Question Booth on Instagram.

23:38

Yeah, and you can visit us in

23:40

the booth. We're here in Atlanta at Pont

23:42

City Market child to five pm

23:44

Friday through Sunday. Kathleen and I

23:46

wrote the script, I did the music, and the two of us

23:48

produced a show. And the special

23:51

part is you, our listeners and

23:53

participants. We'll talk to you

23:55

again soon, but until then, see

23:57

you in the Question Booth.