Hannah DeGarmo is a freelance filmmaker living in New York City. Her recent credits include 3 mini documentary series on arts and culture in Upstate New York (From the Archives, Lake George On the Water, and Battenkill Inspired), produced by the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library. Lake George on the Water was produced as the local component of an exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution and Battenkill Inspired was supported by Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership. Her article “Two Minutes: The Making of the Battenkill Inspired Video Series,” was published in the Spring-Summer 2019 edition of Voices, the journal of New York Folklore. She recently completed her first independent video art piece, "Cardinal," with an up-and-coming NYC dancer, and is currently working on a documentary art piece about environmental conservation in Puerto Rico.

 

I’ve had a passion for storytelling for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my elaborate games of make-believe shifted back and forth between long afternoons scribbling in notebooks and typing on thick, early-2000s Apple computers. I was obsessed with the DVD-filled shelves of films before I ever understood they were another way to tell the stories I loved.

 

My Art and Art History degree from Colgate University focused my eye in the possibilities of visual storytelling. The fantastical creatures from my childhood were present here, but so too were the details of the everyday, painstakingly enhanced and admired on museum walls. I am inspired by stories and details wound into the surface of our familiar lives, and strive to share the brilliance of those bits and pieces through my work.

 

In September 2018, Hannah moved from a one-stoplight, no-grocery-store small town to a fifth-floor walkup in Brooklyn, NY. When she isn’t filming, editing, or exploring the city, Hannah is working on her first novel. She hopes to one day make the perfect soft-boiled egg.