Deep Waters

Short Film (11 min 43 sec)

"The 'image' comes first and tells me what the 'memory' is all about." The short film, Deep Waters, is an assemblage of black and white vignettes capturing scenes of everyday life in Durham, NC. The collection of moving images reveal the memories that live in our bodies, in the water, at our backs, and in the spaces of our homes. Like water, we are "remembering where [we] used to be" and imagining where we are. With ancestor figures regularly appearing throughout the film, the image-based narrative reveals two worlds overlapped. The material and the mystical. Made by three Southern artists in collaboration with our full cast of cultural organizers and community members of SpiritHouse, Inc., the film shows the nature of Black Southern traditions as an intrinsic blend of the spiritual, the corporeal and the imaginative into the everyday. (Quotes from Toni Morrison's essay, "The Site of Memory.")

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About the Team

Ambrose Rhapsody Murray (Director, Producer)

(she/they/he)

Ambrose Rhapsody Murray is a multidisciplinary artist from Western North Carolina with roots in Florida. They are a self-taught painter and seamstress who received their BA in African-American Studies from Yale College in 2018, concentrating in arts & culture. They create tactile, multi-layered and mystical scenes as a method to sew themselves and the stories they grew up hearing, reading, and imagining into the fabric of our collective consciousness. https://ambroserhapsodymurray.com/

Logan Lynette Burroughs (Director of Photography, Editor, Producer)

(they/them)

Logan Lynette Burroughs is a photographer and filmmaker based out of Atlanta, GA. They create documentary work focusing on different aspects of Black existence; what is praised by some and despised by others. “Either way, it’s us.” Burroughs strives to provide information about Black folks in the now, adding to the grand narrative for future generations to know and witness us. https://llburroughs.com/

Heather Baebii Lee (Producer, Cast Member)

(she/her)

Currently living in Durham, North Carolina, Heather Lee is a North East native and a South East rooted artist who has been dancing and performing since she was a little girl. She has studied Modern, Contemporary and African Dance at the world renowned American Dance Festival where she performed with the African American Dance Ensemble in 2010. She currently works as the Program Director for the SpiritHouse Inc. Empowerment Through Dance Program (ETD). https://www.spirithouseinc.org/

SpiritHouse, Inc. (Cast)

Founded in Durham in 1999, SpiritHouse uses culture, art and media to support the empowerment and transformation of communities most impacted by poverty, racism, gender inequity, criminalization and mass incarceration; through grassroots programs, cultural organizing and community collaborations. https://www.spirithouseinc.org/