What began as a documentary about city residents’ resilience during the pandemic has evolved into an organization that is demonstrating how resilient the city really is.
Susan Sipprelle, a documentary filmmaker, spent three years shooting, editing, and developing “Newport: In This Together,” interviewing 108 Newporters and finding a city and its residents that are resilient, supportive, and innovative.
The film will be screened on Friday, April 12, at 7 p.m. at the JPT Film and Event Center in Newport.
Sipprelle intended to tell the story of a “small American city,” one where she has lived and worked, and one “with international name recognition…I went into it with an open mind … let the interviews and footage tell the story.”
She says Newport is a city with “a culture of service and sacrifice. I think there is something unique about Newport, drawing strength from its long history, beauty, an ability to go out on the bay, and the music.”
There’s “such a deep sense of community,” she says, that “pulls together… it made me feel so good.”
It also motivated her to form reNEWPORT, co-chairing the group with Ellen Pinnock of FAB Newport. The ‘re’ stands for renewal, Sipprelle says, and it meets every few weeks. Its initial project was to bring the city’s famous daffodil festival to the North End.
They found “no daffodils in Newport’s North End,” Sipprelle says, but in April, when the 1.5 million daffodils bloom throughout the city, the North End, Sipprelle says, will have 38,000 and will celebrate on April 14 with an event at Miantonomi Memorial Park.
Now, reNEWPORT has turned its attention to aiding the school department in reducing absenteeism, a problem for nearly all school districts in Rhode Island. The group’s next meeting is from 10 a.m. to noon on April 11 at Emmanuel Church, 42 Dearborn Street, Newport.
The meeting is open to the public, although Sipprelle asks that those wishing to attend email her at susan@newportinthistogether.com.
Sipprelle’s voice conveys excitement about the film project and reNEWPORT, a group she says has evolved into a “community collaboration.”
Daughter of Newport teachers, Sipprelle earned her bachelor’s degree from Williams College and an MBA from New York University. She then became a commercial banker, but her career was put on hold while she and her husband raised five children.
But instead of banking, she chose journalism, enrolling at the Columbia School of Journalism, which she says just “changed my life.”She is the founder of Tree of Life Productions and produced and directed the award-winning films Set for Life and Soldier On, Life After Deployment. Both were shown on public television nationwide, something she also anticipates for Newport: In This Together.
The North end Daffodils were all dug up at the rotary and Admiral Kalfbus near Girard Avenue during the bridge realignment construction. A shame some of
those bulbs weren’t able to be saved and replanted since they were so well established in those locations. There were thousands of them!