COMMON GROUND

COMMON GROUND
An elderly man dedicates himself to his hobby, searching for buried
objects with his metal detector. This is the beginning of a trip into
Southern California, a land whose cyclical process of abandonment,
decay, demolition and reconstruction is a sign of how the economy is
making a mark on the land. Like at Arnold Heights, first it was a
sacred place for the Serrano tribe, then it became a military base which
has since been dismantled and now a new building complex is being
constructed, the Meridian Business Park.

“There is an idea of the United States, and Southern California in
particular, as a place that blithely destroys its own history in the name
of progress. At Arnold Heights I was able to witness and record this
transition. The film’s symmetrical structure points to the seemingly
endless perpetuation of this cycle. The resulting document is as much
about imagination and ritual as it is the physical place itself: Common
Ground seeks to understand what becomes of memory – both personal
and cultural – in this process.”

regia, soggetto,
montaggio, produttore/
director, story,
film editing, producer
Vera Brunner-Sung
suono/sound
Craig Smith
interpreti/cast
Cecil Richards,
Kathleen O’Donnell,
Michael Morris