Oma & Us

Co-director L. Tanner Smith originally pitched the film as a short documentary as his final assignment for a Documentary Filmmaking course at the University of Central Arkansas. His pitch involved showing who "Oma" was personally at present (by shooting documentary footage of her interacting with all the family members that are interviewed for the film) after she talked about what she went through way back when. But due to scheduling issues, the short that was turned in for class ended up being a mere interview-piece. However, a few weeks after class ended, Smith was invited to a party where Oma and several family members attended. He took advantage of the opportunity and used his own camera to capture candid footage that would end up in the feature-length version of the film.