Elena Rue Multimedia Producer
Shared Origins Screening & Fundraiser
Please join us October 27th from 11 – 12:30 at the Center for Documentary Studies, for a special pre-screening of Shared Origins. This documentary explores the connections created across cultural and geographical distances, based on shared origins from Ethiopia. It’s a story both local and distant, whose outcomes are still being written. When two girls [...]
The Council
I recently launched a visual storytelling business, StoryMineMedia, with my colleague Catherine Orr. We decided to launch our website with the release of our first independent project. “The Council,” a series of short, quirky webisodes about a middle school student council election.
My Son’s Eyes
Renee Pinkney’s 19 year-old son Don’Tay suffers from a mental illness. At age 15, he allegedly committed a crime during a psychotic episode. Don’Tay has been in jail for over a year without education or treatment for his illness. While waiting for a trial, Renee and her husband Joey are fighting to gain rights for [...]
The Great Wide Open
When Rachel Westbrook found out she was pregnant, she knew that she could not keep her baby, but she also knew that she needed to be in his life. Doug Dotson and Maura Dillon had been married 10 years before they discovered they could not have a baby on their own and would need to [...]
Starting Over
North Carolina is one of two states that prosecutes all 16- and 17-year olds as adults. After being accused of being in a fight at school, Jaqwan Dancy was suspended from school and put on adult probation.
The Lucky One
Alison Aucoin’s journey to adopt and parent a child from Ethiopia requires her to accept the consequences, good and bad, of the destruction of her life in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Through this experience, she questions what it means to be a woman and a mother without being a wife. She now confronts subtle [...]
Shared Origins
Upon my return from a fellowship in Ethiopia, I was introduced to the Lindsey-Mills family. Lory and Sonya are the adoptive mothers of two children from Ethiopia. Our shared experiences, interests, curiosity, and humor made for an instant connection, which has evolved into loving friendships and meaningful collaborations. From the very beginning of our friendship, [...]
Love After Loss
In 2006, I experienced the other side of the adoption equation during the nine months I spent in Ethiopia as a Lewis Hine Documentary Fellow through the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Placed with an organization called Hope for Children, which supports children whose families have been affected by HIV and allows them [...]
Power Play
As Detroit attempts to reinvigorate a failing economy, alternative energy pioneers have a chance to spark a new industry. Garth Schultz, a solar panel entrepreneur, is poised to begin production, start up his business and help Michigan’s factories start churning once again. [College Photographer of the Year, Silver, 2010]
People of Plaquemines
Liz Sullivan lives with her family in Buras, La. Her husband Donnie has worked as a shrimper his whole life, but even as the family strains to maintain normalcy, she fears her son might never go fishing with his father again.