Meet Cameron S. Mitchell | Film Director, Producer, Film Festival Strategist, and owner of CSM Productions LLC

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cameron S. Mitchell and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cameron S., why did you pursue a creative career?
I am a filmmaker and run a production company because I couldn’t imagine doing anything non-artistic. I wanted to be paid to express myself and to keep myself in the space of creation. Cameron S. Mitchell Productions LLC formed out of a constant desire to make a sustainable creative career where I wasn’t just relying on friends and family, I latched on to the freelance industry in film and studied under many different leaders to see all the potential paths I could take. What was immediately clear is that you needed a path to get to doing what you wanted to do, but there was support underneath and infrastructure that could help you get there. So I started working as a production assistant and then worked my way up (several times) into camera department while running my own company and directing my own projects simultaneously. This multi-pronged approach enabled me to generate enough income to get by while remaining within the vicinity of creative atmospheres constantly.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art is difficult because there is not a lot of support for fiction or non-fiction work surrounding people with disabilities. When I first started, the only thing that existed (thankfully it existed though) was the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge ran by Nic Novicki. The scene has changed a lot since 2016 when I first signed up for that 3 years removed from college. Crip Camp premiered on Netflix and was nominated for an Oscar, Reid Davenport’s I Didn’t See You There has won an independent spirit award, and organizations I’ve mentioned like FWD-Doc and Slamdance Unstoppable have formed to give support to disabled filmmakers. It is still sparse but it’s a big change from when I started out as a camera assistant in Local 600 and didn’t see any outlet that would be interested in my work. It’s not all grim though, this lack of attention also made my work stand out when the attention started being given. It was almost like my work was made for the efforts that surfaced like Slamdance Unstoppable which is at a major festival (Slamdance) that is notoriously by and for filmmakers. I also realized in the film festival application process that who was on the committee matter when it came to getting into festivals. Once I got into Slamdance as a filmmaker with The Co-Op (my first narrative film about a robber whose plans goes horribly awry when he discovers the grocery store he has targeted is full of disabled people), I then got to come back to Slamdance as a programmer since the festivals allows filmmakers accepted to do that. I decided to program for Slamdance Unstoppable and it showed me that if there wasn’t someone who understood your film and what it represented, then essentially you weren’t getting in. If Slamdance Unstoppable took a focused effort to program films like mine, it was no wonder that many festivals rejected my work without a letter as they had no disabled people on their selection committees, no one that understood the work or the people it represented. I then started developing a presentation on film festival strategy that would help other filmmakers understand what I had learned in hopes that I could help them navigate the circuit and not spend too much money while doing it. My entire career I have tried to give back and share opportunities as I myself have been given them and so I strongly believe in paying it forward, even when it might be difficult to do so. I now tour and give this presentation and provide festival consultation for other filmmakers like me as a part of my business model.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of several disability lead organizations including Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, Slamdance Unstoppable and, FWD-Doc. Each of these organizations came a long at critical points in my career where I was searching for an outlet and a place to receive my film stories. I grew up the son of two Disability Studies professors with several undiagnosed invisible disabilities including ADHD and Sleep Apnea. In 2017, I developed a spinal cord industry from a skiing accident. Needless to say, disability was and is an important part of my life and the desire to see folks like myself, my family, and my friends with disabilities represented on screen has driven me to make content that forces that issue through. 1 in 4 Americans has a disability and yet receives less than 2 percent on screen across fiction programming. You can watch my films in order to see the literal journey I have been on and how the issues have developed over time: The Co-Op (on Slamdance Channel), Regenesis (on YouTube), Elsa (on PBS American Masters and the PBS video app) and now my next forthcoming work Kryptonite (originally premiered on YouTube on the disability film challenge page and now is recut and premiering on the festival circuit in 2024). The quotes in these films trace the gamut of my work in disability from the sarcastic comment of the robber in the Co-Op who says to the grocery store owner “you could certainly use some stairs, you’re attracting some undesirable clientele [referring to the people with disabilities in the store]” to Elsa Sjunneson, a real life Deafblind fencer and marvel author, who says in our documentary that she “wants to see disabled people in the future…” referring to why she writes disabled science fiction. Everyone in my films has contributed to getting this message out from producers like Julia Muniz who also helped co-write Elsa to the PAs like Jason August who made The Co-Op possible by donating their time and believing in these efforts to bring visibility to these issues. There are too many people to mention, frankly, but lastly albeit not leastly I will mention my editors Anthony Johns and Rachel Stewart for believing in me and spending years with me developing these stories.

Website: www.cameronsmitchell.com

Instagram: @camerons.mitchell

Twitter: @csmdop