IMPERIAL: RELATING TO AN EMPIRE
POV: Imperial, CA — I hold the next gold rush in my soil. New prospectors are coming as generations pass and churn. As the town of Imperial squints sullenly toward the future this film memorializes the present through the perspective of the town itself. LOGLINE: Through a compilation of portraits and landscapes this short film seeks to monumentalize a town on the brink of California’s next gold rush: creating a record of the present as Lithium mining breaks ground.
ABOUT THE FILM
Runtime: 00:23:41
Language: English + Spanish
Open Captions Available
5.1 & Stereo Mix
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:
Observational interludes punctuate small profiles as the camera wanders through the landscape. A day in the life structure discovers moments across the town of Imperial, creating a mosaic of moments which exemplify themes of the larger overarching story. On the homepage for the town of Imperial, underneath a link to the Downtown Redevelopment Plan is a statement “Desert, not Deserted” and a graphic boasting an “89% citizen satisfaction rate”. Imperial is in Imperial County, California.
The town was founded at the establishment of Imperial county and intended to be the county seat, but lost that title to El Centro, which was established two years later. Both cities were established following an infrastructure failure which caused the Colorado River to outflow into the desert for two years, re-forming the Salton Sea. As water has increasingly become scarce and expensive, Imperial's economy has suffered. Unemployment and poverty run high and with passing generations the town of Imperials has lost wealth, infrastructure, and its youth–suddenly, this trajectory is turning around. The federal push for electric vehicles has created a demand for something Imperial has: lithium. More specifically, 18 million metric tons of raw lithium–enough to make 375 million electric car batteries. This new industry is bringing money, development, and attention to the county; as resources pour in, the path towards change extends in front of the community. I hope that this film can give Imperial an identity to that audience. With stakes that are immediate and present, I fear the audience will anticipate a film that is political and news-like which is not the intention. To mitigate this the film and marketing will lead with an earnest voice, a sense of humor, and stories which exalt humanity.
In the profiles we see the movement of daily life. Action interviews ground personal observations on the culture of the town. One filmmaker whose style I am inspired by is Les Blank, particularly Gap Toothed Women. Tonally I am inspired by Brett Story’s “The Hottest August” as it hurls the viewer into an intimate audience with the participants.
The imagery maintains a rigid standard of beauty: careful framing and formal compositions will elevate the visual presence of the world, grounding the audience in details which make this town and its story unique.
As the narrative transitions through the day landscape photography will establish themes of development, the harsh environment, and allude to important demographic context such as the size of the average home, the typical temperature, and the number and types of businesses in the town.
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