FREEMAN VINES documentary short selected for 2025 Tribeca Festival

Music Maker Foundation and The Group Entertainment is pleased to announce the selection of “Freeman Vines” into the 2025 Tribeca Festival, US Documentary Short Film Competition. The festival runs from June 4-15 in New York City.

Co-directed by André Robert Lee (The Prep School Negro) and Tim Kirkman (Dear Jesse), and produced by veteran independent film stalwart Gill Holland, “Freeman Vines” is a portrait of self-taught luthier and sculptor Freeman Vines who gained notoriety when he made guitars using wood from a walnut tree where Black men were lynched.

A Black man himself, Vines worked as a sharecropper, moonshiner, auto body repair man, and artist, making a series of guitars from this karmically fraught wood, always searching for an elusive sound. Mr. Vines’ guitars were documented in Tim Duffy’s widely-acclaimed 2020 photography book Hanging Tree Guitars (published by Music Maker Foundation).

The filmmakers are grateful Mr. Vines was able to see and enjoy the completed film before he died in March at age 82 from multiple myeloma in Fountain, North Carolina, where he lived and the documentary was produced.

Previously, the film screened at RiverRun and Florida film festivals, which like Tribeca are Oscar-qualifying in the Documentary Short Film category. A nomination for “Freeman Vines” would mark only the third time a Black director has been recognized with an Academy Award nod since the category was added in 1941.

Co-director André Robert Lee wrote, directed, and produced the autobiographical documentary The Prep School Negro and embarked on an international outreach workshop tour with the educational version of the film with thousands of workshops at high schools, colleges, gatherings, and conferences worldwide. He has worked with the NYC Public Schools, The Ford Foundation, Urbanworld, Film Movement, Diana Ross, BET, Paramount TV, Universal, PBS, HBO, Sundance, Picturehouse, NPR, CNN, and Wharton. He has committed his life to building an army of change agents.

“When I first met Freeman Vines in North Carolina, we had an instant connection that felt centuries old,” said Lee. “I am the descendant of refugees from the Jim Crow South. Returning to the state that is part of my family’s origin story was scary and powerful. My time with Freeman made me feel like a return to a home I did not even know I had and needed. I poured my heart into this film and now present it with a deep intention to honor Freeman Vines as a recent ancestor.”

“Freeman Vines” is Holland’s sixth collaboration with co-director Kirkman, who was nominated for Emmy, Gotham, Spirit and GLAAD awards for his documentary feature directorial debut, Dear Jesse. In addition to Dear Jesse, they collaborated on the Sundance hit Loggerheads, Lazy Eye, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, and 2nd Serve. Kirkman received an Alfred P. Sloan grant for his scripted project about Wilbur and Orville Wright.

“Executive Producer David Jones, Jr., gave me the book Hanging Tree Guitars and the story struck me to the core,” said Holland. “I immediately called my fellow Carolinian Tim, who brought André on board. I said, ‘Meet me in North Carolina next week! We need to document this amazing, dying artist!’ It was probably the quickest idea-to production-to-festival route for any movie I have ever worked on.”

Although Lee and Kirkman first met over twenty-five years ago when they worked at Miramax Films, “Freeman Vines” is their first collaboration. “I was onboard as soon as Gill told me about this extraordinary artist. As someone who grew up in rural North Carolina, I felt an immediate connection to Fountain, the town where Freeman lived and created his art,” said Kirkman. “Some of us who are from the South understand the necessity of grappling with its complicated history. It has been an honor and a privilege to have a chance to collaborate with André and bring this story to the screen.”

Presenting the film with The Group Entertainment are Kirkman’s T42 Entertainment, Lee’s Many Things Productions, and Music Maker Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Hillsborough, NC that tends the roots of American music by meeting the day-to-day needs of the artists who create it, ensuring their voices are heard, and giving all people access to our nation’s hidden musical treasures.

Kirkman is repped by Robin Budd of Viewfinder Management.

For more information about the film, contact Gill Holland at gillholland@gmail.com. For materials visit https://www.t42entertainment.com/freeman-vines.