This episode is Part 1 of our discussion with filmmakers Matt Zodrow and Tracy MacDonald. Part 2 has not been scheduled as of yet, but it will be. There were simply too many questions and not enough time to fit all of our questions into one show. Zodrow and MacDonald are the producer/director team behind Whitelandia, a documentary that examines the state sanctioned racial discrimination that prevented Black Americans from living in the state of Oregon from its inception and how those policies are inextricably connected to what Oregon has become in the 21st Century.

Zodrow and MacDonald know why they’re making the film; after a successful run producing documentaries for PBS in Florida (including three Emmy wins), they returned to NE Portland and didn’t like what they found… a neighborhood that had been gentrified and a black community dwindling in number and diminished in voice. Their search for answers as to why became the basis of the film. But getting that message across has had its challenges to say the least. The criticism of Whitelandia’s production has been voluminous and it’s been personal: from skepticism as to the motives of two white filmmakers tackling this subject, to the claims of one of Portland’s leading black scholars that the producers used her work as the backbone of the film without giving her credit or asking her for permission.

Still and all, Zodrow and MacDonald are committed to completing Whitelandia in 2015 and we talked to them about why this story is important to them, the difference between white guilt and self-reflection and how they’ve handled the scrutiny of their production as a couple.

We also talked with Devin Williams, a NE Portland native, about how he himself went from being a skeptic to becoming an associate producer on the film.

But we need to talk more.

For more information on the Whitelandia documentary and the filmmakers, visit their website and visit their Facebook page.