Alumni Filmmakers Return to Pace Academy

David Hanson (far left) and Michael Hanson (far right) with Pace Academy Isdell Global Leaders (left to right) Alec Rogers, Julia Ross, Sarah Lettes and Christopher Howard. Credit: Pace Academy

Staff Report

The Pace Academy Alumni Association and the school’s Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) recently partnered to continue the conversation about water, the 2014-2015 ICGL global theme.

Pace Academy alumni David Hanson (Class of 1996) and Michael Hanson (Class of 1999) returned to the school on Oct. 21 to screen their documentary, Who Owns Water, for Upper School students. The film follows the brothers as they paddle the Chattahoochee, Flint and Apalachicola Rivers to explore the decades-old water wars in Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Who Owns Water was an official selection of the 2014 Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Co.

The Seattle-based filmmakers visited their alma mater as part of their Georgia film tour, during which they served as the keynote speakers for the Southern Association of Independent Schools 2014 Annual Conference.

They also met with Pace Academy’s inaugural class of Isdell Global Leaders, four Upper School students selected to explore water throughout the year through travel, research and customized learning experiences. The students recently returned from a study tour on the Chattahoochee River in Georgia and Florida, and they will visit the Rio Bravo del Norte and the Okavango River Delta in Africa later this year.

David Hanson has traveled the world as a freelance journalist and written for publications such as Southern Living, Outside, Mountain and National Geographic Adventure. Michael Hanson, a former Minor League Baseball player, is an award-winning travel and documentary photographer whose work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Coastal Living, Budget Travel, and the magazines of US Airways and Continental Airlines. The brothers published Breaking Through Concrete: Building an Urban Farm Revival in 2012.