Documentary film series shines light on Indiana waterways – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville

From the Wabash to the Ohio, Hoosiers all through historical past have constructed their livelihoods and cultures round rivers.

That’s why Indiana Humanities, a nonprofit based mostly in Indianapolis, is highlighting the state’s waterways with a documentary movie collection.

“We felt that it was vital to inform these tales, so that folks can see themselves represented within the movie, see their communities represented,” stated Jackie Rodriguez, the group’s communications supervisor. “After which additionally increase consciousness about key points that our surroundings is presently dealing with, our waterways are presently dealing with.”

The group is internet hosting free screenings of six unique brief movies about Hoosiers’ relationship with rivers and the creatures that stay in them. The tour is making a cease in Corydon on Wednesday evening, the place among the filmmakers will reply questions from viewers.

The movies function tales from all through the state, together with a pair based mostly in Southern Indiana.

Katelyn Calhoun’s documentary, Hellbender within the Blue, particulars efforts to reintroduce North America’s largest salamander to the Blue River, which flows by means of Crawford, Harrison and Washington counties.

“They’re type of slimy and ugly, and it’s great,” Calhoun stated. “I’m a giant fan. And I’ve an affinity for making what was seemingly an unlovable factor lovable in terms of my movies.”

The hellbender salamander can develop to greater than two ft lengthy. They’re discovered all through the jap United States, in dwindling numbers. In Indiana, they’re endangered.

Calhoun stated the individuals working to revive the hellbender inhabitants are simply as a lot the celebrities of the documentary because the slimy creatures themselves.

“It’s a bit based mostly out of Purdue, however there’s of us in Indianapolis engaged on it,” Calhoun stated. “There’s of us in Evansville, there’s of us in Fort Wayne that simply are serving to rear these animals within the zoo, in order that they will then launch them within the Blue River. So regardless that it’s actually solely discovered within the Blue River proper now, it’s in all places that individuals are attempting to carry them [up] to their former numbers.”

The Web Makers, directed by Hannah Lindgren, showcases two conventional fish web makers in Southern Indiana. One of many topics has spent his whole life within the commerce, one other is the fifth era of his household to work in it.

The boys use their creations to catch fish within the White and Wabash rivers that they then promote of their group. Lindgren stated the documentary is about their relationship with the craft and the adjustments they’ve seen within the setting throughout their careers.

“It’s actually a dying artwork,” Lindgren stated. “These males craft collectively these hoop nets by hand, generally with hundreds and hundreds of particular person knots.”

Lindgren stated she had a particular emotional connection to the subject, as a result of her grandfather is a Southern Indiana native. He died throughout filming.

“So I actually felt only a kinship with these males, they usually jogged my memory a lot of him,” Lindgren stated. “It was particularly poignant for me, however I simply felt like their story wanted to be instructed. No person actually knew about this craft, they usually’re among the previous few people who find themselves doing it.”

The screening in Corydon is among the unique 9 deliberate stops of the Indiana Waterways tour, however organizers have since prolonged the collection by means of the summer time.