Produced by: Dan Collison & Elizabeth Meister for Long Haul Productions.
For this beautifully crafted piece, Collison and Meister interviewed locals from Brinkley, Arkansas, capturing their pike in hope at sightings of the 'Great God Bird' the Ivory Bill Woodpecker, last sighted in Louisiana in 1944.
What makes the piece so touching is the significance of this sighting to the town. Brinkley, once a town of 5200, now exists as a purely farming town of 3800. As one local notes, the economies 'not real good', and their jobs are that of 'minimum wage'. Yet Collison and Meister are able capture the soul of the town that shines through the adversity with which it is faced.
For one, Brinkley is a highly spiritual community. A community of people who care about each other and their children, for they are the future, yet sees these hopes for the future dissapear from a lack of opportunity in the town itself.
Which brings to prominence the importance of the Great God Bird. Last sighted in 1944, the possibility of the sighting suggests that extinction is not so absolute, and perhaps just as this bird has resurfaced, so too the town of Brinkley can reemerge from its current decline to extinction.
Told through a beautiful mix of nuances between anecdotes and scored by Sufjan Steven's musical response to the Brinkley interviews 'The Great Lord Bird', Collison and Meister beautifully paint a portrait of this town and its struggle to overcome hardship.
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