Films by Steve Robitaille
Expedition Florida: From Exploration to Exhibition (1996)
Produced with the Florida Museum of Natural History, the film explores how museum staff work with field scientists to research and then design natural history exhibits. Archaeologists retrieve ancient artifacts and mammoth teeth from the Aucilla river. Cave explorers help design a cave exhibit and the filmmakers recreate an authentic Calusa Indian encampment to illustrate the lives of Florida’s earliest inhabitants.
Expedition Florida: The Wild Heart of Florida (2000)
The second installment of the Emmy Award-winning Expedition Florida series features an expedition into the Fakahatchee Strand with photographers Clyde Butcher and Jeff Ripple to photograph the illusive ghost orchid. In another segment, cameras follow author and naturalist, Peter Matthiessen, to film the rare birth of a whooping crane chick in Kissimmee, Florida.
Expedition Florida: Wild Alachua (2003)
Wild Alachua, the third film in the Expedition Florida series produced for the Florida Museum of Natural History, features acclaimed nature photographer, John Moran, as he captures stunning images of Paynes Prairie State Preserve. A walk to the bottom of the Devil’s Millhopper, one of the state’s largest and most magnificent sinkholes, examines the intricacies of Florida’s underground water resources. Other segments showcase the historic homestead of Marjorie Rawlings, author of The Yearling and the Dudley Farm, an 1800’s homestead and working farm.
May Sarton: Writing in the Upward Years (1988)
The film series, Writing in the Upward Years, features poets Richard Eberhart and May Sarton reading poems spanning their youth to what Eberhart positively characterizes as “the upward years.” In their interviews, Eberhart and Sarton look back on pivotal moments in their lives that shaped their work and inspired creativity into older age.
Archie Carr: In Praise of Wild Florida (1987)
Archie Carr: In Praise of Wild Florida features readings by Florida’s most prolific nature and noted sea turtle researcher. Carr’s book, The Windward Road, is considered a classic of natural history writing and influenced Peter Matthiessen in the writing of his novel, Far Tortuga. Also appearing in the film are author Russell Hoban, whose reading of Carr inspired the writing of his novel, Turtle Diary, and the film by the same name starring Ben Kingsley and Glenda Jackson. The film features commentary by Senator Bob Graham, one of many Carr students who went on to become influential environmental stewards.
Ask Your Sister to Dance (1987)
In the mid-1980s, Robitaille filmed Ask Your Sister to Dance, a cultural exchange between a group of Gainesville-based cloggers and audiences in five cities in the Soviet Union. He returned to Russia in 2003 with the internationally renowned Cuban choreographer, Albert Alonso, to film a Bolshoi Ballet production of his acclaimed Carmen.
Old Friends (1987)
Old Friends, features scenes from David Mamet’s play, The Duck Variations, as performed before elderly audiences in Miami Beach and Jacksonville. The film captures the reactions of the elders to Mamet’s two old characters sitting on a park bench, projecting their fears and vulnerabilities onto ducks in the wild.
Eberhart at Eighty (1986)
Eberhart at Eighty, documents a 1984 University of Florida Writers Festival held on the occasion of Richard Eberhart’s 80th birthday. Eberhart reads from his poems on life, aging and mortality. Joining Eberhart to pay tribute are poets Donald Hall and Jay Parini, and noted critic, Cleanth Brooks.
Richard Eberhart: Writing in the Upward Years
The film series, Writing in the Upward Years, features poets Richard Eberhart and May Sarton reading poems spanning their youth to what Eberhart positively characterizes as “the upward years.” In their interviews, Eberhart and Sarton look back on pivotal moments in their lives that shaped their work and inspired creativity into older age.
Spontaneous Mind (1986)
The 1986 film, Spontaneous Mind, chronicles the residency of beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, photographer, Robert Frank and drummer, Elvin Jones at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The three artists engage with their respective students and reminisce about the time they spent with writer, Jack Kerouac, in Daytona Beach in the 1950s. Ginsberg gives a reading at Rollins College and Frank has his video student create new imagery to accompany Kerouac’s account of his 1950s visit with Ginsberg to the area.
Seven Ways to Kill the Suwannee (1982)
Seven Ways to Kill the Suwannee, 1982 documentary shot over 12 months from the Okefenokee Swamp to the Gulf of Mexico, examines serious threats to the historic river. The film earned a record-sized regional PBS audience and influenced the adoption of a model floodplain ordinance for the Suwannee.