Hare in the Gate Productions
We have produced more than 30 short and feature films since starting Hare in the Gate in 1999. Our award-winning productions include stories about Indigenous communities strengthening their cultural identity, residents enduring massive urban revitalization of their neighborhood, Depression-era homesteaders eking out a living in remote Hells Canyon, world-class artists, and even a combine demolition derby.
Feature Films
Imagining Home and Dryland are available for home viewing and educational use. Use the links to go to our store page for each film. If you’d rather own a DVD of either film, please contact us.
Imagining Home (2009) follows the lives of several families, displaced when their culturally-diverse, crime-ridden, public housing neighborhood is razed to make way for a tiered-income community under the banner of New Urbanism and the federal program known as HOPE VI. After a few years, former residents are invited to move back into the newly-built homes but have to work through a fresh set of challenges with neighbors who’ve never lived in an urban setting.
Click to Rent or Buy streaming versions.
Dryland (2014) Filmed over 10 years and set in the rolling wheat-farming region of eastern Washington, Dryland traces a young man’s battle to preserve a threatened way of life, while vying for victory in a rambunctious contest—the annual Lind Combine Demolition Derby. It’s a celebration of hard work and harder play, fueled by intelligence, heart, and axle grease.
Dryland was invited to screen in 13 film festivals and won two Best Documentary Awards (see below). We also took the film to more than 50 community and university screenings across the country. As a result of producing Dryland, we were invited to organize the first-ever film festival for Farm Aid’s 30th anniversary in Chicago, 2015.
Click to Rent or Buy streaming versions.
Short Films
These are a few examples of our short films. They represent commissioned as well as independent productions. All of our short, independent films have aired on Public Broadcasting stations, and a few have been in the domestic and foreign film festivals.
We join Elders of six Pacific Northwest tribes as they come together to tell origin stories and discuss traditional lifeways on the banks of the Snake River, deep in Hells Canyon, between Oregon and Idaho. This land is where their ancestors lived and traded for millennia. (2002)
Master Basketweaver and Education Director of the Burns Paiute Tribe, Minerva Soucie preserves and passes on her knowledge to tribal youth and others. The term “Wadatika,” or black seed eaters, refers to the band of Northern Paiute People who lived near Malheur Lake, in southeast Oregon. (2001)
Proving Up & Settling Down focuses on Euro-American settlers living in Hells Canyon, North America’s deepest river gorge, between the 1870s and 1940s. This film includes personal accounts of three old-timers who homesteaded the canyon. (2006)
Proving Up & Settling Down was selected to screen in these festivals:
Krakow Film Festival (Poland)
Festival Internacional de Cinema Arqueologico del Bidasoa (Spain)
Rassegna Internazionale del Cinema Archeologico (Italy)
Archaeology Channel International Film Festival (USA)
Renowned Northwest painter and printmaker, George Johanson, invites us into his studio as he prepares for a Portland Art Museum exhibit of his work. Johanson shares his philosophy of art and technique, as he applies finishing touches to one of the pieces in the show. (2002)
Michael Curry, acclaimed theatrical and puppet designer of Broadway's Lion King fame, Artistic Director of the Times Square Millennium New Years Event, Cirque du Soleil, Olympics opening ceremonies, Super Bowl, and many others, creates a dramatic and elegant stage show including some of America’s top choreographers, dancers, and musicians. (2001)
Our mission is to stir conversation, challenge stereotypes, forge connections, and deepen our understanding of a complex world.
We envision a world in which diverse neighbors come together on common ground to exchange ideas and craft a life with purpose and dignity.