Arts

Knight Foundation wins its third regional Emmy Award

Knight Foundation received its third consecutive regional Emmy Award Saturday night.

Co-producer/directors Dennis Scholl, Marlon Johnson and Kirmaya Cevallos traveled to Atlanta to receive the Southeast Regional Emmy Award for Dancing With the Trees, a 39-minute documentary about the Frank Gehry-designed Ohr O’Keefe Museum. The film competed in a field of over a dozen submissions and received the only Emmy of the night in the Cultural Documentary category.

Dancing With the Trees’ Emmy-award winning co-producer/directors Marlon Johnson, Kirmaya Cevallos and Dennis Scholl

Dancing With the Trees chronicles the story of America’s best-known ceramicist George Ohr, the mad potter of Biloxi, and the museum that bears his name.  The Ohr O’Keefe Museum was close to completion when it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But leading patron Jerry O’Keefe and the museum’s board continue to work to bring the museum to completion. The film grew out of a $3 million grant by Knight Foundation to the Ohr O’Keefe to complete the final phase of the museum, the iconic pods that will house its collection of Ohr’s work. Dancing With the Trees interviews world renowned architect Frank Gehry about the project and his passion for George Ohr and his pottery.

Dancing With the Trees follows two other Emmy-winning Knight Foundation films. Ideas in Motion, a 2011 Emmy-winner by Johnson, Scholl and Cevallos, tracks the efforts of five winners of the Knight Arts Challenge, while Sunday’s Best, a 2009 winner by Johnson, Scholl and Chad Tingle, explores the history of African American women wearing hats to church. Sunday’s Best grew out of Knight Foundation’s sponsorship of Free Gospel Sunday at the Knight Concert Hall.

Next up for Johnson and Scholl is a film about the worldwide response to Knight Foundation’s Random Acts of Culture™.