Menu
Tri-County Bank gives $5,000 to North Putnam film effort
Passion is Beth Benedix’s middle name.
Well, actually it’s Dana, but it should probably be Passion.
Get into any conversation about education with Benedix, DePauw University professor and founder of The Castle, and you’ll see it.
Her green eyes light up behind her tortoise shell glasses, whether she’s talking about her college students or those The Castle reaches at the county’s public schools.
So when she describes “North Putnam,” a upcoming documentary centered on county’s second-largest school corporation as a “passion project,” it must really be something.
“We’re so excited about this project and everything it can possibly do to bring some visibility to things North Putnam is doing and hopefully bring some additional resources into the community,” Benedix said.
The film will depict the year in the life of a rural Indiana community, specifically the six townships North Putnam Community Schools entails.
“Focusing on the intersections among the local school corporation (whose efforts to make the most of few resources are nothing short of herculean), the tenacious surrounding agricultural community, robust revitalization initiatives and families caught in a cycle of poverty, the film aims to start a national conversation about the stakes of investing in our public schools and communities,” the project description says in part.
The project recently got a generous boost when Tri-County Bank, with three locations including its headquarters in the district, donated $5,000 to the effort.
Bank President and CEO Chuck Dixon, along with three staff members who are North Putnam graduates — Marilyn Wehrman, Nathan Scott and Chelsea Edwards — made the presentation to Benedix, North Putnam Superintendent Nicole Singer-Allee and school board member Joanie Knapp.
“We’re just really glad to be a part of it,” Dixon said. “We think it’s going to be super. It’s going to help out the schools and the community.”
Singer-Allee, who is also a Tri-County board member, shares in Dixon’s excitement.
“We’re just excited to be a part of the film project and the documentary that will help promote the school corporation and all the great things we do in rural Indiana,” Singer-Allee said. “We appreciate the support of Tri-County Bank and all of the things they do to help the school corporation. Without the community support, the school wouldn’t be as successful as we are.”
Benedix, for her part, was grateful both for the financial support of the bank and the partnership with the school corporation.
“I just want to say how grateful we are for the support of Tri-County and from the North Putnam Community School Corporation,” Benedix said. “North Putnam was the clear partner that we thought would be interesting to work with. So we brought the idea to Nicole and we worked together to try to shape what it could look like. From there, we went and got support from the school board.”
The idea for “North Putnam” came not only from the experiences Benedix has had working with North Putnam Schools, but also from watching “Man on Fire,” a 2018 documentary by Joel Fendelman and James Chase Sanchez.
The documentary is about a small town, Grand Saline, Texas, grappling with the public suicide of a 79-year-old white Methodist minister, who left a note explaining that his final act, setting himself on fire, was a protest against the virulent racism of the community and the country at large.
“I showed the documentary ‘Man on Fire’ to my students and I loved it so much and I love their manner of storytelling,” Benedix said. “They’re so nonintrusive and they just let the story organically unfold and give people a voice. I love that style.”
When Benedix had the opportunity to pitch her idea for a film about small town public education to Fendelman, she took a shot.
“Joel, the director, skyped in with my students and I loved his manner. He was just so respectful and he had more questions than answers,” Benedix said. “I took a chance and I pitched it to him and asked if he’d be interested in doing a film on public education and he said yes. We kind of went from there.”
Not only are Fendelman and Sanchez on board, but Dave Eggers has signed on to be an executive producer of the film. Author of of the best-selling memoir “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” Eggers has long been an inspiration to Benedix.
“We’ve got Dave Eggers, who is the original inspiration for The Castle,” Benedix said. “He’s a TED Prize award-winning author, writer, publisher. He’s my hero. We got him on board as executive producer which is kind of coming full circle because there’s no way this film could be made without his inspiration.”
With the inspiration taken care of, The Castle is now on to the perspiration side of making the project go.
Right now, that involves raising $50,000 to put together what’s known as a sample reel. While the involvement of Fendelman, Sanchez, Eggers and fellow executive producer Amanda Uhle certainly lends the project gravitas, a high-quality sample reel will help pitch studios on the idea.
“We want something that really knocks their socks off,” Benedix told the Putnam County Commissioners Monday morning.
Benedix and supporter Cathy Clodfelter were in front of the commissioners to request funding for the project.
They explained that through the generosity of Tri-County Bank, Buzzi Unicem and a crowdfunding effort, $15,000 had been raised so far.
The hopes is that the county can find a way to pitch in another $15,000.
As a native of the community, Clodfelter explained to the commissioners why she believes the works Benedix does, and what the film could do for the community. She noted that Benedix understands “how important the school system is and how important it is to have well-trained teachers who know how to reach every kid, not just the kid who can sit in a chair and learn.”
Even as a Pennsylvania native, Benedix now shares Clodfelter’s passing for Putnam County.
“Beth is not from Putnam County — she moved here 21 years ago,” Clodfelter said. “But she fell in love with it and she feels that there are a lot of people outside Putnam County and Indiana who don’t know what a jewel it is to live in rural America.
“Rural America is not shown in a positive light in any of the media that we’ve seen recently.”
Benedix noted that the film executives have already committed to visiting Putnam County on two upcoming occasions, once in August for a screening of “Man on Fire” and again in October for the first official visit to North Putnam.
“They’re committed to being part of this community, and they’re going to be here a lot,” Benedix said.
With initial funding for the sample reel, the idea is that a studio will fund the rest of the filmmaking process.
“Our hope is that when the studio comes on board, production and post-production and distribution will be taken care of,” Benedix said.
With County Attorney Jim Ensley not present on Monday, Commissioners Rick Woodall, Tom Helmer and David Berry did not commit to any funding, though they invited Benedix back to their Monday, July 19 meeting.
“We’re going to have to do a little research to figure out, if this is something we would do, where that money would come from,” Woodall said.
While Benedix calls the full $50,00 in funding “ideal,” she’s confident she has a team committed to project, come what may.
“We’re just super excited that all of these amazing people have already dedicated so much of their time to this project and they’re committed to this,” she said. “They’re calling it a passion project and for me it sure is a passion project.”