It would not surprise me in the least if I were watching the yearly Academy Awards
presentation next year or the year after, and I heard, "And the award for best documentary feature film goes to Nadine Patterson, of Philadelphia's Harmony Image Productions for "Reclaiming the Light: The Life and Times of Lewis and Mary Latimer."

Patterson, a longtime resident of Mt. Airy (25 years), is an award- winning independent film producer and director. "Her training in theater, immersion in documentary film, and intense study of world cinema have enabled her to create works grounded in historical contexts, with a distinctive visual palette,” according to the resume.

Over the past 30 years, Patterson has taught video production at West Chester University,
Temple University, Arcadia University, Drexel University, Robert Morris University, the
University of Western Sydney in Australia and Scribe Video Center. She was the only
filmmaker selected for The Biennial 2000 at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.
For many years, she has been motivated to create films that are entertaining but also show aspects of African American life that are not usually seen in mass media.

"My mom, Marlene, who majored at Temple University in psychology and sociology, always wanted to tell the stories about Blacks in North Philadelphia," she told the Local last week. "The media generally pictures North Philadelphia as a drug and crime-infested community, which is unfair and inaccurate because many wonderful, accomplished people have come from North Philly."

Patterson has won numerous awards as an independent producer/writer/director who works at the crossroads of narrative and documentary cinema.

She majored in drama and minored in economics at Franklin & Marshall College and earned a Master of Arts in Filmmaking at the London (England) Film School. While at the London Film School, she watched 17 films by Federico Fellini in one summer. She operates the production and consulting company, Harmony Image Productions (HipCinema), with her mother.

Patterson's films have been shown on public television stations and in film festivals around
the world. Some of her films include "I Used to Teach English," winner of the Gold Apple
Award at the 1994 National Educational Film/Video Festival; "Anna Russell Jones: Praisesong for a Pioneering Spirit," named Best Documentary the 1993 African American Women in the Arts Film/Video Competition; "Moving with the Dreaming," which earned the Prized Pieces Award from the National Black Programming Consortium in 1997 and “Black Ballerina” (outreach producer), which was screened on more than 200 PBS stations and on Amazon
Prime, among others. Patterson was the only filmmaker selected for the Biennial 2000 at 
Philadelphia's African American Museum.

The docudrama Patterson and writer/producer Martha R. Conley are currently working on, “Reclaiming the Light: The Life and Times of Lewis Latimer,” tells the compelling but very little-known story of Lewis Latimer (1848-1928), whose parents escaped enslavement in Virginia and wound up in Boston in 1842. Patterson and Conley hope to develop the project into a feature film that can be divided into 20-minute sections for use in the classroom.

Days after arriving in Boston, George Latimer, Lewis' father, was accused of stealing by an associate of his enslaver and arrested. Latimer's wife Rebecca went into hiding. The Latimers’ situation became a cause celebre, with the family receiving support from abolitionists including Frederick Douglass and publisher William Lloyd Garrison. The couple eventually secured their freedom, but the Latimers, who had four children together including Lewis, the youngest, eventually separated.

Lewis Latimer, who had only a fifth grade education, went on to become a brilliant self-taught inventor and patent draftsman while also working in his father’s barber shop. "He enlisted at age 15 in the Navy and fought in the Civil War," Patterson said. "My mom gave me
a book, 'Golden Journal,' many years ago about great African Americans like Harriet Tubman, scientists, etc., and Lewis Latimer was on the cover." 

Latimer's inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, an improved carbon filament for light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. "He also worked with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell," Patterson said. "He drew a picture of the telephone and filed a patent for it."

Patterson was born in Manhattan but spent the first eight years of her life in Nicetown and since then in Germantown and Mt. Airy except for two years in Pittsburgh (2016-2018) as artist-in-residence at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.

Patterson and Conley, the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, co-founded the nonprofit collective, Sisters in Film and Television. Conley also served as assistant director of Patterson's 2012 Shakespearean adaptation, "Tango Macbeth," and co-produced "Lost in the Hype," a 2010 documentary that Pittsburgh City Paper called "a fast- paced survey of how sports racism plays out in a town that's long linked its identity to athletics."

"Making a film is difficult under any circumstances," Patterson said. "It's even more time- consuming when you do not have a big budget and have to keep applying for grants. That is why we do not expect to finish the Latimer film until October of next year.”

For more information,visit hipcinema.net. Len Lear can be reached at
lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.