A Short Film
Ariel Djanikian
Colby Gottert
"Have You Been to the River?" is a psychological drama about Nadia, a teenager who was in boarding school, not doing well in her classes, when against her wishes her father, Nicholas, summoned her out of school and to his new, luxurious house by the water. Now together, father and daughter must unpack the shared memories of a tragic car accident that killed Nadia’s mother, Marie, while they also recover from their own injuries, which left them each altered in their mind and perceptions. Nadia knows that there was a crash over the bridge and into the water, but beyond that she does not remember the details or understand why she is unable to move on from the accident.
She is angry with her father because he refuses to help her remember her mother, and has cleared the home of all photographs. To make matters worse, Nadia is trapped in this isolated home on the top of a mountain with no neighbors, no cellphone reception and no Wi-Fi. One day in the woods, Nadia meets a girl named Aidan who knows things, she knows where to get cellphone reception, she knows about the crash and she even knows about Nadia’s mother. As the story unfolds, Nadia must process traumatic dreams that haunt her, navigate her anger with her father and confront her fear of water to discover secrets about herself and the car accident that led to the death of her mother.
Nadia in a teenage girl struggling to recover the memory of her deceased mother. She is smart, cool and has the right splash of sassy irreverence. Angered by her father she strikes out on her own and pushed past her fear of water in search of a way out.
Father is in his late 40’s or early 50’s. An artist who is rigid and OCD: the house is immaculate and ordered. The accident has left his with trauma to the right side of the brain, so he can remember what happened, but his memories are fading and he seeks to preserve the memory by painting his deceased wife anew every single day.He loves Katherine and wants to be a welcoming and loving father who can support her and make her comfortable, but he is quick to lose his temper and erupt in anger.
Aidan is mysterious. She appears and disappears without sound or greeting. She is Katherine’s source of strength, inspiration and information, but she is also eerie with a supernatural quality that never allows Katherine to be fully at ease around her.
Marie is elusive and dreamlike. Katherine can’t access her memories of her mother and Nicholas fears losing his.
Colby Gottert is an multi-Emmy award-winning producer and cinematographer whose films have been broadcast on Apple TV, HBO, CBS, ESPN, AT&T Audience, FOX and PBS including limited theatrical releases.
A prolific creative producer known for his ability to manage multiple crews and projects around the world, his wide range of credits include the critically acclaimed feature documentaries and series: Super League: The War for Football; Voyage of the Vezo (PBS); Life out of Balance (World Bank); Youngstown Boys (ESPN 30 for 30 Series). Nossa Chape (SXSW Film Festival, FOX Sports Films Magnify Series); Momentum Generation (Audience Award Tribeca Film Festival, HBO, Universal International); Give Us This Day (AT&T Audience) and the episodic series Phenoms (Fox Sports1, multi-platform exhibition during FIFA World Cup Russia(TM)); the ongoing ESPN-U television specials - ACC Men's Basketball Tournament and Home for the Holidays (CBS Television).
Co-founder of Digital Development Communications (DDC), the development industry's leading documentary production company for the past 15 years with offices in North Carolina, Washington DC, Madagascar and Colombia. DDC has established production capabilities in over 75 countries worldwide.
River Finlay is an award winning documentary filmmaker dedicated to telling powerful, character driven stories. Her work has been screened at dozens of festivals across the world including Sheffield Documentary Festival, Big Sky Documentary Festival, and Camden International Film Festival and is featured on National Geographic and The Atlantic. River’s point of view as a director is rooted in twenty years as an international public health expert - most recently with International Planned Parenthood Federation. This experience deeply informs the content of her work.
Ariel Djanikian is the author of the novels The Office of Mercy and The Prospectors (forthcoming fall '23). She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan, and her work has been published in Tin House, The Paris Review, The Rumpus, The Millions, and elsewhere. She has received a Fulbright and a Hopwood, among other awards, and teaches creative writing at Georgetown University.
Dilsey Davis is the founder and president of Café con Leche Media (CCL Media). CCL Media is an independent production company based in Atlanta, GA, dedicated to creating high-quality, life-enhancing programming. Dilsey was previously the Director of Media Advocacy for the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina (CRA-NC) for eight years. As Director, she created television programs and short films that combined both entertainment and information to effectively reach underserved audiences. Most notably, she was the creator, producer and director of the award-winning “Nuestro Barrio” (Our Neighborhood), a Spanish-language telenovela series that addresses financial topics.
She has also produced, directed and written media projects in South Africa, including the short film Wedding Day, starring popular South African actor Kenneth Nkosi. In addition to film and television, she has also produced many commercials, PSAs, and e-learning video projects for corporate clients and non-profit organizations. Dilsey is also an actress and co-founder of One Human Family Workshops Inc., a non-profit organization that uses the arts to promote global unity. The group has toured extensively both in the United States and abroad for over 12 years. She received a B.S. degree from Duke University and her Master’s degree in Public Health from UNC-Chapel Hill.
As a firm believer in the power of storytelling, Cris is a seasoned filmmaker with a passion for cinematography as a means of capturing the beauty of the world, and of filmmaking as one of the best tools to foster human creativity and its collaborative potential.
With more than ten years of experience working on a diversity of films, commercials, and documentaries, Cris has honed his craft and developed a signature style that blends technical expertise with a keen eye for composition, color, and light; always with the goal to create meaningful and impactful visuals that bring stories to life and engage audiences.
Mamihasina Raminosoa is a highly experienced Filmmaker who has been instrumental in promoting quality cinematography in Madagascar for almost 20 years through DDC’s local branch. He collaborated with renowned directors who have won prestigious awards, including Cannes’ Grand Prize, Academy Awards and Emmy Awards. Hasina has personally traveled to 30 countries across four continents to make films for Colby and DDC.
While DDC mainly produces short videos for international organizations working for development, such as USAID and UNICEF, Hasina spearheaded the production of fictions. His debut short fiction film "La Bulle" in 2008, starring Colby Gottert, was nominated by festivals in Europe, North America, and Africa. It was followed by the production of a series of short educational films in South Africa with Dilsey Davis’s Café Con Leche Media. The films starred famous South African actors such as Kenneth Nkosi (Tsotsi, District 9, Jerusalema...).
In 2009, Unicef Madagascar hired the DDC team for the production of "Dzaomalaza", a series of educational films aimed at young Malagasy people. The three parts film circulated in African festivals and won the Best Youth Film Award at the Lola Kenya Screen Festival. The Dzaomalaza “cinemobile" campaign traveled through 30 major cities in Madagascar and recorded more than 200,000 spectators in the public screening sessions.
Mamihasina and DDC co-produced the film "L'île Rouge" by Robin Campillo, a French Director who won the Grand Prize at Cannes. “L’Île Rouge” was filmed in Madagascar and the movie is set to be released at a major film festival in 2023.
I’m a film editor working on documentaries and fiction films for the past 20 years.
My passion for filmmaking began in Brazil, where I was first drawn to storytelling, writing, and visual arts from a young age. I studied Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College, in Boston, and have since worked on hundreds of productions as an editor, producer, story developer, director, or post-production manager.
My focus as an editor is to bring to surface the dramatic elements of a story. By crafting words, rhythms, soundscapes and moving images into an emotionally compelling experience, I hope to speak to a greater truth. One that can be felt deeply, rather than just understood. My hope is to work on the most cutting edge and thought-provoking content being produced in the filmmaking world.
I’ve edited productions using AVID Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro, but my expertise is in Apple’s Final Cut Pro X. I’ve used it since 2014 to edit most of my work, including many feature-length documentaries, TV specials, series, and hundreds of short films. I’m enthusiastic about developing efficient post-production workflows using FCP to allow the most time for creativity and collaboration.
Jack is co-founder of DDC and leads the team on domestic and international development projects. From their home office, Jack has also managed productions carried out by both DDC’s team and vetted freelancers in nearly 40 countries worldwide. Jack has worked on the ground as a cinematographer and field producer in over a dozen countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America/the Caribbean. In addition, he has filmed for feature documentary projects on Showtime, Apple TV+, and Paramount+. He is fluent in English and has a working knowledge of Spanish and French.
Erika Narváez is an industrial designer from Colombia. She has worked as a production assistant, costume and props designer for theater plays. She worked as an associate producer in the docu-series Super League: The War for Football, broadcasted on AppleTV+. Erika has been a producer at DDC International since 2021.
Kiya Sabet is a writer and filmmaker based in Carrboro NC. Prior to writing and directing his first movie, an award winning short, he amassed an eclectic array of experience in many areas serving as a Deejay, talk radio host, teacher, auctioneer, office manager, production assistant and writer all before pivoting and becoming a stay-at-home father to three wonderful children. As all children do, his grew up, and now he just wants to make movies.
