FAQ

The opening scene in the first episode displays a video of a canal behind a chain link fence. The camera zooms out and pans up to reveal an abandoned mill in the distance. That footage was shot by filmmaker Christian de Rezendes when he was 18 years old.

No. As de Rezendes himself admitted, during his research he "quickly realized how little I knew. Growing up, we were never educated that (Slatersville) had historical significance as America's first planned mill village, and this was true for several generations of locals before mine".

The first interview was filmed in 2004.

After some trial and error, the first grants were awarded in December of 2011 and filming commenced in January of 2012.

The Town Administrator of North Smithfield (RI) had approached filmmaker Christian de Rezendes in 2010 about making a short film to promote the village known as Slatersville as a key destination for the proposed Blackstone River Valley National Historical park (which was later approved by the US Congress in 2014). However, when the town failed to secure funding to produce the film, it was suggested that de Rezendes could move forward with the project on the condition that the filmmaker obtain his own funding. In turn, North Smithfield would work in cooperation with de Rezendes' company to further develop the project.

No. SLATERSVILLE was originally planed to be a promotional short commissioned by the town of North Smithfield (RI). When filmmaker Christian de Rezendes took over the project, he had planned to expand it into a full-length documentary. Due to what the filmmaker described as "a decade-long odyssey of research and discovery" that took him through seven US states and a few locations in England, the project morphed into an eleven-part TV series spanning over two centuries. Its final incarnation as a series ultimately tells the story of America through the unique prism of Slatersville itself.

The most exciting moment was the discovery of personal letters stored away for 70 years from within the Slater family, the correspondence of which had never before been seen nor studied by historians.

Filmmaker Christian de Rezendes was driven to not only have a better understanding of the history of his home town but to leverage that understanding as an educational opportunity to address contemporary issues. "Understanding our past and how people of varied cultural, religious, economic and ethnic experiences found common ground confronting their challenges provides us with precious insight into how we can address ours," noted the filmmaker. "It's in understanding our past we are best empowered to confront our future."

Filmmaker de Rezendes marveled at the lack of self-awareness he and others initially had regarding the historical significance of his home town. "As Americans, we simply do not know our own history, and the history we do know has been reduced to merely the most flattering light," he observed. "We need to look at ourselves, warts and all."