German fellowship opens door for FSU grad's documentary on Ukrainian artists

Rarely do the building blocks of a creative career get observed or applauded for the sheer grit it takes to pursue a dream.

Jack Wingate, a 23-year-old Florida State University graduate, has fallen in love with documentary films. While on a fellowship in Germany he met the subjects of his new project on Ukrainian artists.

Wingate wants to research documentaries, film them, and organize what he’s observed into moving pictures with meaning. And in order to do all of that, Wingate is also learning about the behind-the-scenes connections that are needed, the funding that is required, and how luck can play a part.

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Wingate’s Tallahassee parents, a carpenter and a tech administrator, were planners.

They encouraged education for all three of their children and bought into Florida Prepaid, planning to leave their children without a university debt. Youngest child, Jack, had kept his eye on the future too, taking summer classes and extra courses throughout his Leon High career.

Learning German, meeting Ukrainians

At Florida State University, Wingate began with a major in creative writing, then with an expanded world view and a discovered love of documentary films, he ultimately graduated with dual majors in Digital Media and Creative Writing. He was just 21, and before graduate school, Wingate decided to apply for a fellowship in Germany where he imagined his creative energies would be further stimulated.

Wingate presented two FSU thesis films for consideration for the CBYX Fellowship, which is funded by the German Bundestag and U.S. Department of State, and annually provides 75 American and 75 German young professionals, between the ages of 18½–24, the opportunity to spend one year in each other’s countries, studying, interning, and living with hosts in a cultural immersion program.

With a documentary on an older grandmother getting through the COVID months, and another film demonstrating how the small minority community of Providence was impacted by a new road running through its middle, Wingate was accepted to the program and set off first for Cologne, and later for the bulk of his internship, Berlin.

“I learned German while there, and began to take a deep interest in German politics as well,” Wingate said. Wingate’s host family, a photojournalist and a painter, were also instrumental in introducing the American to German filmmakers and their work.

Bringing Studio Ukraine home

But it was in Berlin where his own film began to emerge.

“I had become aware of the Zentrum fur Kunst und Urbanistiks, a 15-year-old organization that looks at how art can act as a catalyst for transformation in urban spaces. Artists work as volunteers in a setting where middle-class residents and new arrivals, immigrants for instance, reside — bridging gaps and bringing commonality.”

Wingate says he offered to make a documentary of the work being done at Studio Ukraine, an art space there where recently-displaced Ukrainian refugees were finding purpose and passion in a setting of welcome.

He says that both he and those with whom he worked in Berlin were moved by the outcome and the film’s message.

Home now, Wingate is in the process of scoring the film with FSU friend, Antonio Ortiz, and “colorizing” it with Jackie Owens, so that in every respect “Studio Ukraine” will be a professional piece. But in many respects, it is now the hard work that begins.

Editing and fundraising

Wingate is doing the fundraising and marketing required to bring the film to the attention of festivals like Nifty, a contest for narrative and documentary youth filmmakers, Shots, and even Cannes. And he is filled with optimism.

“I would like to find myself within the next five years having a film career perhaps between Germany and the U.S., working in the international film market with an international team," Wingate said. "There is a certain energy that comes from the melding of cultures that I love.”

In the meantime, Wingate hopes for $1,000 to apply for film festivals and travel. And he notes that any monies raised from the showing of “Studio Ukraine,” will go to the aid of the refugees from that war.

See a trailer

Marina Brown can be contacted at mcdb100@comcast.net. Brown’s most recent book, "When Women Danced With Trees," has won a 2022 Gold medal from the FAPA.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Fresh from Germany, FSU grad wraps 'Studio Ukraine' documentary