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True Family - The voice of Meschiya Lake
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LOCATION: Copenhagen, Denmark
CATEGORY: Film
We need the final post production for the documentary about Meschiya Lake and her journey from street performer in New Orleans to critically acclaimed musician
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BEST FEMALE PERFORMER

Meschiya Lake

-- 2011 Big Easy Music Awards


"Meschiya Lake is one of my favorite New Orleans musicians, a singer with a lot of feeling and much love for the early music."

-- Tom McDermott


"Lake can make you feel by turns as though you were shivering around a campfire in a railroad yard or drinking in a Budapest night club in 1938."

-- THE NEW YORKER


"Diminutive vocalist Meschiya Lake has a heart-shaped face with features that appear right out of a 19th-century daguerreotype, but for the dark-blue tattooed dots and diamonds that run along the curve of her eyebrows and the dimple in her chin."

-- NOLA.com




About the documentary


I first saw Meschiya Lake together with my dad three years ago when she was busking at the corner of St. Peter and Royal in the French quarter of New Orleans. I was immediately blown away by her powerful voice and bought her home made CD right away.


My dad is a former record producer who during his career has made recordings with both Memphis Slim and John Henry Barbee. He has a great passion for roots and traditional music, a passion I shared with him from early childhood listening to his records and anecdotes from the good old days.


It was he who took me to New Orleans to show me the roots and the melting pot of all kinds of music.


The following year I went back to New Orleans with the goal of making a movie about this extraordinary singer.


When meeting Meschiya I was also introduced to a crowd of young talented musicians and dancers who have picked up the old style of New Orleans music, now playing and dancing in the streets of the French Quarter. I set out to make a movie about this new movement in the music scene documenting it from the point of view of Meschiya Lake and the tale of her life journey. The result is my own unique view on Meschiya and the New Orleans music scene.


-- Tao Nrager. Filmmaker



Synopsis


From the ravages of a devastated post-Katrina New Orleans, a newfound hope emerges in the form of a free-spirited young woman with a big voice.


Meshiya Lake has been a runaway, train-hopper, professional mud-wrestler, glass-eater in the traveling circus and cross-continent traveler and at the ripe age of 28 she found a home and community in the birthplace of jazz... New Orleans.


Meschiya Lake and a voice the likes of which has not been heard since Bessie Smith busking the streets of French Quarter for tips.


An intimate portrait, True Family follows her rise from street performer to critically acclaimed musician whose most recent CD was named one of NPRs top four breakthrough albums of the year. 


Seeking refuge from a drug addiction, Meschiya found herself in a New Orleans much changed from the one she had fallen in love with years earlier.


Along with Meschiya, we meet her new found family - a community of jazz loving swing dancing young musicians who refused to give up on the city so many others had abandoned.


An unflinching, inspiring portrait, True Family shows us New Orleans and Meschiya healing, rebuilding, and rising from the ashes of tragedy side-by-side.


This is the story of a young woman and a legendary city once again finding their voices.


Featuring


The Little Big Horns, Magnolia Beacon, Meschiya Lake, Tom McDermott, Erika Lewis, Jason Jurzak, Charlie Halloran, Luke Winslow King, Mikey Freedom Hart, Mike Voelker, Aurora Nealand, Lulu, Richard Levinson, Shaye Cohn, John Joyce, Rusty Lazer, Chance Bushman, Shani B, Peter Loggins + many more fantastic people


How you can help


We have invested nearly two years and all of our savings to shoot and edit this documentary.

The next step goes beyond our expertise. We need a sound designer to do justice to all the great music and a colorist to give New Orleans its warm easy look.

In other words, we need to raise $ 9,842 to pay for sound design and color correction.


Please Use the buttons under the video to share this IndieGoGo page on Facebook, Twitter or email the link to those friends who love music and New Orleans. We thank you a for your support it means a lot to us.



All the material for this documentary is recorded in New Orleans, New York and Berlin.







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Team
Tao Nrager
Director/Cinematographer
Wiebe van der Vliet
Producer/Editor
 
$2,057
RAISED OF $9,842 GOAL
0
TIME LEFT
Perks for your contribution:
Friendly: $20
Your name on the screen credits
24 Claimed
Friend: $50
Your name on the screen credits + Special online access to performances not used in the documentary
7 Claimed
Close friend: $100
Your name on the screen credits + Special online access to performances not used in the documentary + Digital download of the finished film after official release
11 Claimed
Family: $500
Your name on the screen credits + Special online access to performances not used in the documentary + Digital download of the finished film after official release + "Provider of Post Production" screen credit
0 Claimed
True Family: $1,000
All of the above + credit as "Associate Producer"
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