 Welcome to Moments with Melinda. I'm your host, Melinda Moulton, and today, as my guest, I have Silas Haggerty. Silas, how are you today? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Good to be here, Melinda. Thank you so much for being with me. Well, let me tell my viewers who you are. Silas is the executive director of Smooth Feather Youth, which he founded in 2017. Smooth Feather Youth is a nonprofit that supports positive change and collective creativity for youth through film. So Silas, I researched you on the web and spent several hours. And I've known you for a long time, too. I've known you for probably 10 years. We go way back. But there's a tremendous amount of important work that you've done during your relatively short life. You have created award-winning films. You created a film school, an adventure program for young men and women, youth workshops, a theater, and so much more. So I want to know, Silas Haggerty, where do you get your inspiration? Oh, great question. Where do I get my inspiration? I think it's probably through, well, it's through a lot of things, but the first word that came to me was silence. That I find that because I don't have a boss, so to speak, I feel like my boss is being quiet in the morning. And so I call it meditation, but it's just the idea of getting quiet, closing my eyes, setting an alarm, sitting down, and then me checking in with something bigger than me and saying, a lot of times my wife will say, what are you doing today? I'm like, well, I haven't sat yet, so we'll see. And then I'll sit and then I feel like that's where both my direction and inspiration comes from, is that silence. So that's the first, I guess, thing that came to me was silence. There's a lot of things though, the youth that I work with, my family and my wife, but the silence is the first one that came to me. I think a lot of us could learn a little bit more about silence, my friend, I really do. So good for you. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and your life growing up? Yeah. So I'm sitting in an old theater right now that is in my hometown of Keyser Falls, Maine. It's in southwestern Maine. And yeah, I grew up here, small, little quiet mill town that the mill's kind of closed now. But growing up, sports were a huge thing for me. Soccer, skiing, track, so like very active in that way. That's what got me to University of Vermont was the draw to play soccer there. And then, so yeah, I think my childhood was, it's kind of cool that I'm back in my hometown now, but I live 30 minutes from here, but where I bought this old theater is in my hometown where I would go to school and I still know a ton of people here. And it was kind of that pull at one point in my life in like my late 20s to kind of stop moving so much. I was traveling all over the world, doing a lot of different things. And I kind of got this message, I got to stop moving so much. So I kind of came back to my hometown and bought this old theater called the Keyser Falls Theater that's, yeah, built in 1880 and just a really special spot and I've been renovating it. And so yeah, that's a little bit about my childhood and how I ended up getting back here. And I know your parents have been really inspirational too. I read quite a bit about your folks, but who in your life, Silas, provided you with the greatest insight and vision that inspired you to pursue your important work? Hmm. Well, I think that I was just taught, I mean, my parents for sure, I guess I'll start with my dad because I was just talking to him the other night about this that, you know, he really instilled this kind of belief that you could do anything you wanted. And like you could do anything you wanted. I remember just a couple nights ago, I was talking to him like, yeah, you remember how, you know, at UVM, I had this crazy idea that I was going to bring you to the band to UVM for something. I just remember having this like dream that I wanted to do that. And it never happened because, you know, bringing you to a college campus is a difficult and expensive task. But just this idea that I believe that I could do it. And I'm sure I could have eventually done it. And I still believe that that could happen. But my dad really kind of instilled that early on, like you can do anything you want. So I think that was a very powerful, early kind of role modeling messaging early on. Yeah, you want to do it, like just go for it. And then my mom, I think was more reserved, like in the sense that she was, I think helped me a little bit, like my dad would maybe heat me up and be like, you can do anything. And then I come and my mom was like, cool me off. I remember when I did well on tracks, she'd be like, yeah, but you know, there's like other guys in the next state that could totally beat you. So don't like always remember that, like kind of like there was this balancing act going on of my mom always kind of in a good way, kind of grounding me a little bit. Talk to humility. Yeah, well, yeah, and it's a journey. And I look to my mom for that every day. So I want to talk just for a little bit about smooth feather productions because that was your original company that you started in early on in your career. Can you tell us a little bit about smooth feather productions? Yeah, so smooth feather productions was kind of born in like the early 2000s, well, yeah, early to mid 2000s after University of Vermont worked in New York, did a lot of traveling, doing films and then decided I wanted to create my own production company and making films for a lot of organizations, a lot of bands, you know, that kind of stuff. And then there was a 10 year period with smooth feather where we made a film out in South Dakota about this powerful 330 mile horseback ride and that's called Dakota 38. And that took 10 years to make that film and that's a whole another conversation about that. One of my questions, let's jump right into that Silas. That's an important film and that was when I first met you. Yeah. Was to sit down and view that film. So why don't you share with our folks what Dakota 38 is because that was one of your early films. Yeah, so Dakota 38 started when I went to a sweat lodge on the coast of Maine and I'd made a film as my senior thesis at the University of Vermont that dealt with a young man who committed suicide and there was a bunch of footage of him right before he passed and his parents who I'd never met said, hey, can I invite you to a sweat lodge in Maine? They were also living in Maine. Jeff and Andrea Galuzza and they said, we got so much healing out of seeing our son in that movie that you made before he passed. Could we meet you? And so I said, yeah. So I went to the sweat lodge because of that. Was in a sweat lodge for the first time which totally was a whole another story. Just really powerful. And then they had a friend visiting from South Dakota named Jim Miller who's a Lakota healer who was visiting. And he had just had this dream about a 330 mile horseback ride where he rode in his dream all the way across South Dakota, Minnesota and then saw 38 men all holding hands, singing a song and they were hanged at the same time in his dream. And he didn't know what it was. And he said, you know, I just had this super intense dream and for a while I was pushing it off because he's a recovered alcoholic and he didn't wanna deal with this dream. But then he started, eventually he got up to courage to ask his elders. He was in his 60s probably at the time he started asking his elders, you know, what is this dream I had? And they said, that's an actual event where Abraham Lincoln hang these 38 men. So that was really powerful. So he kind of told me that story about how he had this dream and he wanted to ride out his dream in real life now and for healing and reconciliation to kind of heal from a lot of the trauma on both sides and to kind of ask for forgiveness for their part in the wars, which was I was really blown away by like, you know, because we've done a lot of horrible things in Native Americans. So for him to say, I wanna ask for forgiveness for our part in it for the things that we did in those, you know, times it was like, whoa, what an opener. So that's called Dakota 38. And like I said, that was a long life changing journey of living out there, doing that. And then the model was different in that we just, no one got paid for it and we gifted that free of charge to the world. So it's on YouTube, you can watch it, Dakota 38. And... Go to 38, go to YouTube. And you also showed it, I believe. Was it in the Lincoln, you showed it down? Yeah, we showed it in a lot of wild places from prisons to all sorts of places, yeah. Extraordinary films. So to my viewers, please go to YouTube and check this out. It says in your bio that you give your films away. A lot of, I mean, in filmmaking, I think when you do documentaries and films, the money that you make is when you're making the film, but when it's done, then what happens to it? And so talk to us about your vision for giving films away. What does that mean? Yeah, no, it's a great question and it's always kind of evolving. But yeah, for right before making Dakota 38, I met a really inspiring friend named Nipun Mehta and he has an amazing organization called Service Space and I'm connected to so many great friends out there. And he was the one who really started the scene early on of like, your films are powerful, man. Like, why don't you just give them away? And I kind of was living in an expensive apartment in New York at the time and was kind of working my way up through the film world. And then he just inspired me to hit the road. So for two years, I made a bunch of films where I just met up with people that inspired me and then said, hey, let's make a film. So like my buddy Zach Weinstein, who had just broken his back. He's a quadriplegic. We went and hung out in his dorm room and made a film for other quadriplegics. That's just one example of the films that we made. So that journey has still carried on with our nonprofit. We still are totally, all the events are free at the theater with Smith Feather Youth that we hope hear from the film schools. That's all free. And then we have this awesome Patreon program which people may be familiar with but it's like a subscription base. Like someone chips in five bucks a month for us and they get a t-shirt and they get to support us. And it's been amazing to have that kind of a model sustain us and allow us to kind of keep offering the programs that we're offering. So kind of like focus on the service and trust that it'll be supported and that seems to have worked, which is exciting. It has worked. It has worked. Your work has been called transformational. And so can you share with my viewers what motivates you to pursue your many endeavors and can you share my viewers a personal story about transformation that has occurred because of your creative gifts of inspiration? Yeah, so I think the first thing I think of when you say that is summer before last there was a young student in a class. We go into the high school and we kind of do a writing workshop for our summer film school that we do. And that's a way to connect with young people that might be interested in making a movie. And we make a movie in one week. They have no experience. They come to the theater one week they make a movie and then they project, you know, show it to the whole town on a big screen and the theater's packed. And then we have a roll, how red carpet rolled out and the blast and music and fog machine. It's like, it's awesome. It's a really, really powerful thing. So to kind of recruit the teens for that we go to the local high school and we ask the question to kind of kick things off. If you really knew me, you would know blank. It's a very, I love that question because you can take it as deep or as, you know, surface level as you want to go. So they all write for 10 minutes. If you really knew me, you know blank and one of the young people that we were working with writes and I said, does anyone want to share? And she, her name is Olivia and Olivia says, yeah, I'd like to share. So I said, okay, she seemed really shy. So I was kind of surprised that she volunteered right off the bat. And she said, if you really knew me, you'd know that I cannot make eye contact with people because I suffer from such intense anxiety. And I can't have pictures taken of me and it's a struggle and that's what you would know if you knew me that I have this struggle. So that started and then long story short that same girl, Olivia, ends up being the lead in our movie that summer as the main lead character. And then later ends up going on to the Boston International Film Festival and speaking on stage to a whole crowd of people about what that process was like. I mean, this is someone who, you know, a few months prior wouldn't even let someone take a picture ever. And now she's on the stage and I remember being there like, wow, this is so amazing that she's like, grab the mic. And she's like, yeah, this is what this experience meant to me. And so I've been really inspired by like the healing, like the transformational power of the arts of film. I mean, the film dealt with a lot of issues that she struggles with in her life. So it was like this film as therapy, art as therapy and healing. It was just really, really cool to see that. So that's what gets me fired up. Stories like that to be able to be a part of that. And you know, and it wasn't just, it was like all of us, all the youth, the instructors, you know, it's a big family of people that make that possible. So let's talk about that. In 2017, you started Smooth Feather Youth, which is a nonprofit. Share with us a little bit about this organization that you created. Yeah, so it really stemmed from, you know, me wanting to have a film school. I kind of always thought that would be fun to teach young people how to make movies. So that's kind of how it started. Then it also branched into I was on the computer too much and I was like, I gotta get outside more. And I was like, well, I should run a youth program where I take them outside more. And so that kind of spurred an excursions program which we run, which takes youth outside, connects with nature, turn off our phones, that kind of stuff. So, and the foundation of everything we run is started with a circle. And that's kind of like the magic of everything is sitting down, asking a similar question to that. Like, if you really knew me blank, something like that to kind of, or even just a weekly check-in, like how's everyone doing? And we go out on the circle and that's kind of the foundation of every program that we do is that circle. So yeah, it's really for youth, but it's for, you know, for our whole community to thrive. And I remember this, I have a friend, Ray Ritzi, who says that in order for any culture or animal kingdom to thrive, you need like three generations to be thriving. And anytime you don't have those three generations together, it's not really thriving. So we're focusing on serving youth, but it's really, it doesn't feel like it's youth instructor when you're in that circle. It's like we're all together. And then you have, you know, all those three generations are in our movies with actors to young people, to, you know, to all the people that come out for the event. So yeah, that's a little bit about the film school. And in 2011, you did purchase the theater in Keyser Falls, Maine. Yeah. With support from your family and friends and you restored it and you use it as your home base. You're sitting there right now today. Tell us about this journey and it's the base for your nonprofit. Smooth. So tell us about your journey. Yeah. So the Keyser Falls theater was here. I was actually looking for a location to screen to go to 38 in my town. And my dad's like, what about the old theater? And I was like, what old theater? He's like, the Keyser Falls theater. I'm like, I didn't even know that it was a theater because it was kind of embroidered up and it turned into a furniture warehouse. And so I then inspired by that went to meet the older gentleman, Phil Welch in my town who owned the theater, talked to him all about like what it was like to run the theater for many, many years. And he, at one point I said, would you ever consider selling it? He's like, now I don't think I could do that. It'd be too emotional for me. And he's like, but I'll tell you what, just wait till I die. And then my kids will sell it to you for way cheaper than I would anyway. So I said, okay, I laughed. And we, you know, and then a couple of years later he passed. And you know, I waited a few months and then reached out to his daughter, Diane who, Diane went with who I knew, knew well and growing up. And so I talked to her. I said, hey, I've got this dream to like renovate the theater and have events, do a film school, you know, have concerts, that kind of stuff and have it be a space for the community to come out to. And she just was incredible, you know? Like gave it to me at a ridiculous price and made sure I could do it. And she believed in it and she still does, I hope. And you know, it's so great to have her at events and I'll often put her on the spot and say, hey, can you get up on stage? And so, you know, I'm like the latest steward of doing programming, doing events at the theater, but it has a long tradition before me. And I've had so many building parties where over those 10 years, I mean, it was pretty rough when I got it. And, you know, having painting parties, having, you know, all sorts of, you know, we've had, you know, Lisa Steele and Julie and Scott in here, you know, helping out. So all of these patron supporters that have been a part of, you know, making this all possible have, you know, showed up and helped us to make the theater what it is. And so I think that sense of ownership from so many different people, like, yeah, I painted that wall. You know, when you walk in a theater, it has that feeling of being a community space. And it's so beautiful. So to my viewers, please go to smoothfeatheryouth.org where you can see- Or smoothfeather.org, yeah. Smoothfeather.org. It's not smoothfeatheryouth.org. No, just smoothfeather.org. Smoothfeather.org. Smoothfeather.org and check out the website and you can see pictures of the renovation and what a beautiful job you all did. So the young folks that you work with at Smoothfeather Youth just completed a film and I assume this might be the one that Olivia was in and it was called The Queen of Hearts. Can you tell us about it? Yeah, so that's a film that we made this past February. That's the latest one that's been released. Since then, we've made a film over the summer. So our latest movie is called As We Are, but I could also talk about The Queen of Hearts if you have other questions about it, but whichever one you want me to talk about. Talk about your new one. Why not? Yeah, so- Talk about how people can see it. Yeah, so it's gonna be released on our website very soon. It's called As We Are and it's, yeah, it's an incredibly, incredibly powerful short film. And kind of when I asked the young director, Tyler Muse, what would you like to have happen is kind of a question that I started to ask him instead of saying, what do you wanna make a movie about? I did a couple of sessions with him where I talked for maybe two or three hours with him and said, what would you like to have happen? And that was the opening question that led to a long, long conversation, which one of the things that he said in that long conversation, which ended up becoming the film, is I'd like to find humanity in those people that we really have trouble finding humanity. And like the people that have done the worst things, how do we find humanity and the people that have done the worst things? So then that kind of pivoted to the question of like, well, what's an example of what would be the hardest thing for you to find humanity in someone? And he said, well, probably if someone broke into my home and was like, harming my family in some way, it would be really hard for me to find humanity and love for that person. So that kind of became the backbone, the structure of our movie. And so it involves an intruder in someone's home and the family coming home and how they deal with that. And it's super intense. It's like, every time I watch it, it's just the intense meter, the dial is way up. And it's all about how do you deescalate a situation that looks like it has no way out. And so a young person in the film is the person who deescalates the situation. And so, you know, for a young 17-year-old to say that that's what they wanna make a movie about, I mean, that fires me up. I'm like, man, this is so incredible. It inspired me. And then the whole town came out and acts in the film and it's a really great film. So that's called As We Are. As we are, well, you know, in this world today, I think we all do need to reach out to people who cause pain and also create forgiveness within ourselves because with forgiveness and you have healing. So that's incredible. As we are, smoothfeather.org. For my viewers, I will let you know when that, is it really, it's not released yet, right? And, right? Yeah, not quite yet, but it'll be in the matter of days. So I don't know when this is gonna be released, but yeah, we can make it up there. I'll definitely get it up on my social media. So you've also made films for nonprofits. And I just wanna let you know that my viewers, to let folks know that you did make films for Vermont Special Olympics. And in one of those films you highlighted my grandson, Rowan, who has speechless autism and he's been an inspiration for so many people when there are diversity. And your piece has been seen a lot and it's helped promote the communication tool known as facilitated communication. And that's what gave Rowan his voice. So I wanted to thank you for your work in that because the work you did with Special Olympics was really special and you do this for nonprofits. So for that, I honor you. I wanna talk to you. You stated in your films that they often have to do with healing. Can you share a little bit with our viewers what you mean by that, Silas? Yeah. Yeah. I think they do. It's a common, I think it's a common- An example. I mean, an example is the film that you just created and the healing also with Olivia. But that's sort of where you go is you wanna create films that create healing and the human spirit. Yeah. And the circle, the circle, when I think about a lot of the films that we make they wouldn't have the energetic feeling that they have unless we had that circle in the morning. And so we deal with some super heavy things, some super powerful messages and a couple, one of the days in the film school this summer, we had an opening circle where a lot of people opened up and we were crying in the circle or multiple people crying and you have this connection, this love, this bond in that circle. And then when you leave that circle, there's this, yeah, it's like a vibration. I don't know how else to say it. Energy. More energy. We're all energy. Yeah. And you need to extend to my viewers, Silas Haggerty works with youth. So you're working with youth and I just talked to an educator who said the number one issue for kids and youth in our nation right now is mental health. And there needs to be healing and the work that you're doing is helping to heal and allow the folks you work with. So how do the youth get involved? Do they sign up? Is there a fee? Do you go out and recruit them? How does somebody get involved in your program? Yeah, it's, there's really no formula and it's always, it's kind of organic. But some of it's through people that I meet and say, hey, I'd love to have my kid in that program or some, sometimes it's, you know, we just showed as we are the film I was telling you about on Tuesday of this week at the local school. So all the students are watching the film. So, you know, there were a couple students in one of the classes that I was in and I said, hey, you know, I went up to the teacher afterwards, what's that person's name? I feel like they could really thrive in the film school. You know, they kind of lit up and raised their hand when no one else was raising their hand and kind of connected. So, yeah, it's kind of a mixture of things and how we find them. They kind of find us, we find them. It's like a, it's like any relationship. It's kind of like, how do you meet friends? It's like, well, it depends. It's organic. It's karma. Yeah, and we have friends, you know, like the other day we had a board meeting and, you know, we're all, you know, a few of us on the board or in the lobby at the theater and our buddy Kane stops in and he's the guy who's kind of a poster child started when he was like 11 with us and has been in a lot of films and just a great, great kid. And so Kane comes in on a scooter. It's like, look, I just got this scooter, man. Like I still don't have my license, but you can drive a scooter in Maine if you have your permit. So I'm driving my scooter around. So he just like rolls in and to me that's the best, you know, sign of success in my mind that a young person sees the light on, pulls in and comes in. He couldn't even save that long, but he like gives a hug and he's like, I gotta go. But that's kind of the connection. Well, today you said you had to move your truck because if people saw your truck in front of the family they'd come in and bother you. And the silas would be like, yeah, just say hello or just come in and say hello or want to give you a hug or I didn't mean bother you, but interrupt our interview. And you were sensitive to that. And you said, I have to go move my truck a couple of blocks down the street so people don't see it. So obviously you are a beloved human being. Okay, we have climate change. We have the potential end of our democracy. We have these issues for children growing up in this country right now that are really frightening and intense. So as we finish up this interview Silas what is your words of hope and wisdom for our youth today in this country to be able to move through what is the crisis of humanity? I think that we've ever seen which is the crisis of climate and also perhaps the end of our democracy. So what is your words of wisdom for the youth today? I think that all I can really do is speak for myself. And I would just say that doing what makes me come alive is really what I try and focus on. And so what gets me excited in the morning? What gives me that? I like tingle on the back of my neck that says like, wow, I want to do more of this. And so whatever that is, that's kind of how, that's how I strive to follow that, follow that excitement, follow that fire in my spine, that like excitement that makes me want to get up in the morning and live and be alive. So I think, and then that's going to ripple out in ways that we have no control over. But if I can focus on that then I think that's kind of an empowered place that I try and be in. So for our youth, your words of wisdom for them to get through their day, they just got through COVID, they're dealing with climate, they're dealing with many are living in poverty and struggling and also the fate of our democracy. I mean, our children today are facing a lot that I think in my generation, we were hiding under a desk because of nuclear war, but at the end of the day, we weren't having climate change. So I'm just, I'm going to just say this for you because I'm going to go to both of us so we can see both of us here. I'm going to say it for both of us. I think the work that you do does help the young people that you're working with to face their world and understand what it is in their world and how they have to live in this world in order to face the issues and to be a change maker. And I think you do that in the work that you do with these kids. Wouldn't you say that? Yeah, and I think it's completely reciprocal because a lot of times when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling disconnected, when I'm feeling depressed, I think, okay, I should get a circle together and I should connect with some youth and let's put on an event for the town. And so, and that brings me out of wherever I'm struggling with that connection. And so a lot of times like there was this quote that I read that was really helpful to me. It was like the definition of suffering is believing that you're separate from the whole. So when you think that you're separate from the whole, that's suffering. And so a lot of times in my life, I'll start to feel like it's on my shoulders or it's me. And then when I can like connect myself to the whole, get in a circle of people, that's when all of a sudden the weight's taken off. It's like, okay, we're all disconnected. We're all here. We're all trying to do the best job we can, do what makes us come alive together in service of other people. And so that's what kind of keeps me excited. What a beautiful message. Well, we've come to the end of our show and to my viewers, Sila Sagarty, what a treat to spend time with you. And if I get over your way, I will come to your theater. Come to the theater. Well, absolutely. I just started. You have three couches, Myrtles in the back and Rosie. So there's these big velvet couches you can sit on. Well, velvet is my thing. And I just started a local theater group in my town called the Huntington Players. So we've been producing productions here. So to you, my friend. If you go on the road, we'll host you. Well, I will think about that. So to my viewers, I just wanna thank you for being with us today with Sila Sagarty.