Director + Producer + Editor
Film & video: Moving Stories
Director, Videographer & Editor | Kelly Skye
Directors & Producers for Vanastree film | Megan Toth & Kelly Skye
I have directed, edited, and produced several short and feature-length documentary films. I have specifically highlighted the stories of people worldwide working to make the world more just and ecologically sane.
I have found that video-based storytelling helps audiences see into, and be touched by, the lives and work of others. I also love doing this kind of work because of the support it consistently creates for important social and environmental causes.
Canopy Connections
Canopy Connections is a short award-winning documentary that looks at new and innovative outdoor learning environments for children. It follows the experience of middle school students as they embark on an adventure using ropes and harnesses to climb high into the canopy of old-growth forests while learning essential lessons in ecology. This is also a story about enhancing our education system through active outdoor learning programs that provide young minds with fresh and vital perspectives.
Visionary Voices
Visionary Voices is an experimental storytelling format that coordinates three different screens to display simultaneous video imagery. The work features female human rights activists such as Wangari Maathai, Leymah Gbowee, and the first female African head of state, Ellen Sirleaf. These women are rarely as well known as male counterparts like Mandela, King, and Gandhi. Yet, they have embodied bravery and become pivotal leaders for millions of people living in highly oppressive conditions.
By highlighting the compelling public speeches of these women and their community impact, this project explores the power of radical visionaries to uplift those around them. Viewers are immersed in each story through archival audio, video, and the written word on a dynamic multiscreen projection display.
3 powerful women, 3 minutes each
Resilience
Resilience is a tale of two communities in the high Andes of Peru that are organizing to adapt and restore their watersheds, as the glaciers melt and food security becomes more uncertain. This work was made into several targeted short films and an interactive documentary. Learn more about this project on the Resilience page of my portfolio.
Vanastree: Women of the Forest
I directed, produced, and edited this award-winning feature-length documentary about a women’s seed-saving cooperative in southern India. Located in a remote part of the Western Ghats mountains, this is a region named a biodiversity hotspot by UNESCO with a long tradition of keeping small biodiverse home gardens.
The main goal of the film was to raise support for the cooperative of 150+ women who are working to create food security by saving some of these heirloom seeds which are rapidly disappearing with the influx of modern agriculture across the continent.
Beneath the Bodhi Tree
Beneath the Bodhi Tree is a film I helped to produce and edit about the World Peace Ceremony held every year in Bodh Gaya, India. At this ceremony, thousands of Tibetan monks and nuns travel for hundreds of miles to pray for universal peace and awakening. This ceremony is held for ten days beneath the sacred Bodhi Tree and has become an essential catalyst for cultural revitalization and preservation. In its 27th year, it is one of the most beloved and widely attended annual events for Tibetans in exile.
Documentary Film Reel
