Conversations about Ships

2010, 20 min, 16mm film/video, color

In the ninth decade of his life, a former merchant sailor recounts to his granddaughter chronicles of his maritime expeditions during the 1930s. She romanticizes her grandfather’s testimony but also questions his fearlessness and great luck, contrasting these characteristics to her own traumatic experiences of water. Partially filmed at the Philadelphia shipyards where he was once in port during a heat wave in the summer of 1933, this lyrical documentary reveals common and divergent cross-generational and cross-cultural experiences through listening and telling.

Director, Producer, Cinematographer: Rini Yun Keagy
Editors: Chris Chan Lee, Rini Yun Keagy
Additional Camera: Seth Mulliken, Chris Chan Lee, Ted Passon
Original Music: Ceiri Torjussen

Commissioned for WYBE: Mind TV/Media Independence Philadelphia Stories 7 New Programs, 2009

Broadcast ongoing: WYBE: MiND TV/Media Independence, regional broadcast
Screened at Scribe Video Center's Storyville Screening Series, Philadelphia PA, 2010