Our intention in making this film is to introduce a new perception of Appalachia and its people into American public discourse and to provide solutions for counteracting negative stereotypes on a broad level.
Ashley York grew up in
eastern Kentucky and moved to
Los Angeles to pursue a degree at the
University of Southern California where she became inspired by filmmakers
Anne Lewis and
Barbara Kopple, and began producing a body of work about the culture and experiences of rural people. Having personally experienced the media’s negative portrayals over and over throughout her life, she has long been eager to make a film like
Hillbilly. Ashley’s most recent film,
Tig, premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival in January 2015.
Sally Rubin’s mother was raised in the
Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee, and Sally spent substantial time there as a child. As a young filmmaker, Sally associate produced David Sutherland’s
Country Boys, a Frontline film about two teenage boys growing up in eastern Kentucky, and then made her own film (with Jen Gilomen),
Deep Down, about mountaintop-removal coal mining in a small eastern Kentucky town.
Deep Down was nominated for an
Emmy Award for its outreach component and broadcast nationally on
PBS’ Independent Lens. The time Sally spent in Tennessee growing up contrasted with her experience making films in the region as an adult has sharpened her sensitivity to both insider and outsider gazes on Appalachia, and ignited her passion for telling the tragic, comedic, and poignant story of
Hillbilly. We need to raise $40,000 to complete the bulk of production, and to secure critical post-production funds, which will allow us to move forward and to get this important film out into the world in time to make a difference!
Please help us reach our goal. Thank you!
All contributions are tax deductible minus the value of the perks!
If you want to help but can't donate right now, you can use these links to share our campaign with people who may be interested or contact us about local screenings in your area. Twitter and Facebook and let your friends know using the hashtag #hillbillymovie #hillbilly
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Ashley York (Director) is a Kentucky-born filmmaker who is interested in documentaries, socially conscious media, and emerging modes of storytelling. She has worked on
Academy Award® nominated teams and on projects that have premiered at the Sundance, Berlin, and SXSW film festivals as well as on Oprah Winfrey's Network, A&E, HBO, Discovery, and the Sundance Channel.
She co-directed and produced
Tig, an
Official Selection of the
2015 Sundance Film Festival. Ashley was one of nine women debuting a feature film at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. She produced two 2011 Sundance Film Festival Official selections:
Becoming Chaz, about Chaz Bono's gender transition; and
GRAB, about the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico.
She is a member of Women in Film, the International Documentary Association, and a founding member of the design collective,
Take Action Games, which is committed to highlighting issues that affect women and girls and partners with various social justice and mission-based organizations to make digital activist projects, including the
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the International Crisis Group, the Independent Television Service, and the Center for Asian American Media. Take Action Games received an
Emmy Award nomination in the category of New Approaches to News and Documentary Film as well as the prestigious
Governors' Award from the Academy of Arts & Sciences (the Emmy's highest honor) for a campaign co-produced by mtvU to raise awareness about genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan.
Ashley received her
BA in journalism from the
University of Kentucky and her
MFA from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts where she currently teaches. Ashley lives in Los Angeles.
Sally Rubin (Director) is a documentary filmmaker and editor who has worked in the field for more than 15 years. Her mother is from Calderwood, Tennessee, a hollow in the Smoky Mountains. Rubin grew up visiting the region and has been visiting family and spending time there for many years. She recently completed Life on the Line (co-directed by Jen Gilomen), a documentary about a teenage girl living on the border of the US and Mexico--a Fledgling Fund recipient that premiered in 2014 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and across the country on PBS.
Her previous film, Deep Down (with Gilomen), was an ITVS, MacArthur, Chicken and Egg, and Fledgling-funded feature-length documentary about two friends in eastern Kentucky who find themselves divided over mountaintop removal coal mining near their homes. The film was part of the 2010-2011 Independent Lens Emmy-winning PBS series, and has reached almost 1.5 million people through its broadcast, distribution, and outreach campaign. It was nominated for an Emmy for its Virtual Mine outreach project, in the category of New Approaches to News and Documentary.
Rubin's other credits include The Last Mountain, a film about her father's death in a hiking accident that was broadcast on PBS, Robert Greenwald's Iraq for Sale: the War Profiteers (Editor), and the television series "The Freedom Files" (Editor), as well as David Sutherland's 6-hour Frontline special Country Boys, about two boys in Floyd County, Kentucky (Associate Producer), and Riverwebs (Editor), which broadcast nationally on PBS. Rubin recently completed a short that aired in conjunction with David Sutherland’s Kind Hearted Woman on Frontline in 2013. In 2004 she founded the groundbreaking Straight Outta Grrrlville Film Festival in San Francisco, and continues to produce local events and benefits for artists and filmmakers, in conjunction with her own continued work. Rubin is also full-time documentary Professor at Chapman University and a graduate of the M.A. program in Documentary at Stanford University.
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