Directed by Randy Caspersen
Runtime- 40:00
Inspired by the decline of monarch butterflies in the Midwestern prairie, a gardener, educator, and pastor transform a rural church’s backyard into a sanctuary for pollinating animals, an educational garden for the community, and a sacred space for spiritual contemplation.
Director Biography – Randy Caspersen
Randy Caspersen is a filmmaker whose short films and videos, which often deal with themes of queerness and gender, have received international distribution and have played in over seventy-five film festivals on five different continents. His recently completed media projects include award-winning feature-length documentary, Go Penguins!, about a local theatre troupe that helps children and young adults with disabilities play the lead roles in a Broadway-style musical. In addition to recently completing documentary Plants, Pollinators & Prayers about the creation of a local butterfly habitat, he is working on an autobiographical film about his maternal grandmother and a narrative short charting a gay man’s evolution through the point-of-view of a beloved toy.
Caspersen is an Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University in the Department of Communication where he teaches television & video production and narrative screenwriting. He has a BFA in Film & Video from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MFA in Film & Video Production from Columbia College Chicago. Before his academic career, he worked in Los Angeles in television production for nine years.