Selina Lewis Davidson – co-director/co-producer
Co-founded GreenHouse Pictures in 2003, a documentary production company that has produced more than 15 nationally broadcast documentaries, including the Emmy nominated Hard Road Home (director: Macky Alston) and Occupation: Dreamland (directors: Garrett Scott and Ian Olds), which was released theatrically and won the 2006 Independent Spirit Truer than Fiction award. Selina’s IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1081733/
Macky Alston – co-director/co-producer
Emmy-nominated & Sundance award-winning documentary filmmaker. Founder, Auburn Media. Films include Family Name, Questioning Faith, Hard Road Home, The Killer Within and Love Free or Die. Appeared widely in the press, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show & The New York Times. Has media trained over 10,000 faith and justice leaders, including many of today’s most influential prophetic voices. mackyalston.com
Please List the Title of Your Film at BIFF 2025
Acts of Reparation
What was your first experience with film and how did it influence your first project?
Selina: My first movies I actually screened on TV, which were black-and-white classics, PBS documentaries and musicals. My favorites were often related to history and nostalgia. Those early movies made me want to be a cultural anthropologist and then documentary producer. And Macky and I like to sing in the car together – starting 30 years ago.
Macky: The first movies I remember were Disney like 101 Dalmations and Lady and the Tramp. I can feel in my body right now how excited I was pulling into the movie theater parking lot. Escape to Witch Mountain rocked my world, so it’s not surprising to me that our first documentary was a quest film. Come to think of it, our most recent film is about two friends trying to get home.
Who is (are) your favorite filmmakers?
Selina: Spike Lee was the person when I went to film school that I was most excited about. Les Blank is brilliant, the Koen Brothers too. I love Gus van Sant’s subject matter and style. Julie Dash was breakthrough for me as I was coming up. In her work and Spike’s I got to see myself.
Macky: I’ve always come at this question from two directions. I love the arty movies I first saw at rep houses in NYC when I was in college: the French New Wave – particularly Truffaut, Wim Wenders, Kieslowski. But I realized I was meant to make documentaries when I saw Time Indefinite by Ross McElwee. The first-person documentary form rendered with humor and heart made me want to gather stories and share my own.
What are you working on that no one knows about?
Selina: Macky doesn’t even know this. I can’t talk about it publicly. Let’s just say it’s a short social history about an intimate part of our body.
Macky: When I was young, I used to write songs as I walked around town. I think I’ll have come full circle in life when I finally sing them out loud.
Who would play you in a movie? What’s your go to movie snack? What’s the film title that best describes your life?
Selina: My older daughter said Pam Greer. My younger daughter said Angelina Jolie and Diana Ross. Gotta love them. Favorite movie snack: Used to be Milk Duds. Now it’s wine. Film title: Grey Gardens – doesn’t describe my life. Its where everyone says I am going to end up.
Macky: Actor: That guy from ER with no hair – Anthony Edwards. Favorite movie snack: Wine for sure. Film title: Entre Nous. I loved that movie so much when it came out. It’s about friendship and in the end, there’s not much better in life than that.
