“The Brownsburg Conversations” was co-produced and edited with W&L film students and members of the Brownsburg community.
Built around the simple premise that “every change starts with a conversation,” the documentary turns its lens to the residents of Brownsburg – neighbors, longtime locals and newcomers – as they discuss issues, memories and hopes that shape life in their community. The film weaves together front porch interviews, kitchen table discussions, and conversations in local churches to create an intimate portrait of a village reflecting on its past and imagining its future.
A portrait of a Virginia community observed through its residents, who reflect on histories of race and slavery, the role of faith in shaping connection, and the possibility of regeneration, as tradition and modern life collide in an increasingly polarized America.
'The Brownsburg Conversations' Official Poster
In this intimate behind-the-scenes moment, community elders Reverend Lucy Jackson-Hughes and Gwendolyn Porterfield reflect on the layered legacy of Brownsburg, where the painful history of slavery meets the warmth of cherished childhood memories, captured as part of a student-led documentary honoring the village's past, present, and future. Their conversation weaves personal truth with collective memory, anchoring the story in lived experience and intergenerational wisdom.
BTS Photos by Jeff Kyle
Marie Coleman & Jeanne Lunsford-Painter, long time Brownsburg residents reminiscing at the old Brownsburg Store
John 'Booper' Bare & Bruce Patterson examine the difference between first generation vs multi-generational farmers in Brownsburg
Historians, Larry Spurgeon and Nancy Sorrells, at Lavelle's Tavern discussing the Brownsburg History
Louis Brown, Edward Carter, Ernest “JR” Rife Jr and Doug Stevenson at the Asbury Church
Rev. Lucy Jackson-Hughes and Gwendolyn Porterfield, with director Nich Perez, go deeper into the history of the Asbury Cemetery, where remains of slaves were buried.
DoP Kiefer Szumlas, capturing some B-Roll at the Verdant Acres farm
With Julie Fox, the Director of the Brownsburg Museum
At the Post Office with Fred Whipple & Bill McGough
A conversation with first generation farmer, John Pedersen
Director, Nich Perez setting up the conversation with Pastors Jim Zimmerman, Lucy Jackson-Hughes and Loren Mitchell at the historic New Providence Presbyterian Church
In conversation with artist and cabin maker, Glen Wilson
In a quiet Virginia village where history still lives in the land, the faces of neighbors, and the walls of a century-old church, The Brownsburg Conversations asks the questions communities rarely allow themselves to speak aloud: What do we owe the past? What do we owe each other? Set in Brownsburg, Virginia, a small, storied community nestled in Rockbridge County, the film gathers an unlikely chorus of voices: historians and farmers, pastors and children, families whose roots run generations deep alongside newcomers still finding their footing. Together, they reckon with a history shaped by slavery, examine the sustaining power of faith, and wrestle with what it means to belong to a place in an increasingly fractured America. The Brownsburg Conversations is as much about process as it is about place. Co-produced with residents of Brownsburg and student filmmakers from Washington and Lee University, the documentary was built through sustained listening, mutual trust, and a commitment to ethical, community-centered storytelling. The result is a film that doesn't arrive with answers, it arrives with questions, and the courage to sit with them.
THE NonProfit Film COLLECTIVE TEAM
W&L Advanced Documentary Students are developing a narrative map as they plan for their individual scenes before filming in Fall 2025.
Dom and Dylan filming some B-Roll at the New Providence Church near Brownsburg
Editing Sessions
The documentary is not simply a portrait of a place. It is a record of a process. Co-produced and edited in deep collaboration with Brownsburg residents and W&L student filmmakers, the film was built through months of listening, relationship-building, and ethical creative partnership. Every editorial choice reflects that shared investment.
The result is a work that belongs as much to the community it depicts as to the filmmakers who made it.
The Brownsburg Conversations was directed by Professor Nich L. Perez, Washington and Lee University's DeLaney Filmmaker-in-Residence. Developed as an immersive, real-world experiment with Advanced Documentary students in the Fall 2025 semester, the project reflects Perez's longstanding commitment to community-centered filmmaking, student mentorship, and collaborative creative practice.
For Perez, the film is not the end of the conversation - it is a continuation of one.
The NonProfit Film Collective presents, in collaboration with the Brownsburg Community and Washington and Lee University Departments of Theater, Dance, and Film Studies, and the Journalism and Mass Communications,
A NonProfit Film Collective Production “The Brownsburg Conversations.”
Featuring the conversations from Community Members of the village of Brownsburg, VA.
Student Filmmakers
Melody Wang A.J .Thomas Jordan Hoover Lela Ganske Claire Park
Hazel Nguyen Jack Booth Dom Montrose Dylan HIll Florian Sloan
Animation and Original Art by Aisy Franciscovich
Animation Producer Niloofar Gholamrezaei
Cinematography Kiefer Szumlas
Additional camera David Verde
Production Manager | Color by Jeff Kyle
Edited by Nich Perez Motion Graphics Crystal Jow
ProduceRs
Bill McGough Paul & Nancy Hahn Mike & Linda Smith Isabelle Chewning
Documentary Professor | Written and Directed by Nich L. Perez
IN FILM FESTIVALS MARCH 2026
nonprofitfilm.org/brownsburg