Genre
Synopsis
The film follows Orly, an aging Cuban exile with a teenage spirit who knows Miami like the back of his hand. As he maneuvers a giant van full of tools and toys through city traffic, Orly’s journey becomes the film’s thread, stopping to help a friend, heading to work as a set builder for movies, or racing to the beach to catch a wave, his movements ignite other stories within the film, orienting viewers to the city as he reveals pieces of himself along the way.
From a rollerskating rink playing the same Miami-Bass playlist each week to the rescue of a 'Crypto Bro' trapped in the deluge of summer rain, from a Miccosukee activist using poetry to connect locals with the land to a Haitian mother fighting cancer, from a refugee to a developer, a mango-eater to a prison choir, the migration of birds to the re-building of coral reefs, from its past and into its future, SIX DEGREES dives into the many realities that exist simultaneously in a single place, reflecting on the microcosm of Miami to teach us a macro lesson about our own human existence.
Bio
Jayme Kaye Gershen is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer based in Miami, FL. Her work uses creative nonfiction to explore emotional experiences that reflect on the universality of our human condition.
Gershen’s short film, Six Degrees of Immigration, about her own marriage divided by immigration policy, found a home on New York Times Op-Docs and PBS, winning a 2019 Suncoast Emmy. Gershen’s first feature documentary, Birthright, about the hyphenated American experience of Cuban American electro-pop musicians, Afrobeta, was the closing film at the 2021 Miami Film Festival, premiered nationally on PBS and won a 2023 Suncoast Emmy. Her latest short, Garden High, premiered at New Orleans Film Festival in 2023.
Gershen is currently in post-production for her next short, Mango Movie, an observational documentary about how Miamians eat mangos and how this iconic fruit’s season is intricately connected with changing climates. She is also in development for her second feature documentary, Six Degrees: The Poetics of a City in Flux, an innovative film and interactive exhibition that crisscrosses Miami’s cultural, economic, and geographic divide, weaving six stories about identity into one film about a rapidly changing city. Six Degrees has received support through the ITVS/NEH Humanities Documentary Development Fellowship, Oolite Arts, and Miami-Dade County.
Awards History
NEH/ITVS Humanities Documentary Development Fellowship 2022-23
Oolite Arts Ellies 2023
Miami Individual Artists Grant 2023
