Driven by Vision

SEASON 2 PREMIERES on Vision TV - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @10:00 PM (EST)

Delighted by the fantastic sites and the human stories behind them, legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens, Salesman and Gimmie Shelter) exclaimed “This is exactly what we should be seeing on television!”, after seeing DRIVEN BY VISION, a series produced by Markham Street Films Inc. seen on VisionTV. 

Seven new half hour explorations of unique visionary art sites are revealed in Season Two of DRIVEN BY VISION beginning Wednesday, March 11 at 10:00pm (EST) on Vision TV.  Nine more episodes from the series, originally entitled Shrines and Homemade Holy Places will be broadcast in the same time slot beginning in May 2009.

Startling.  Illuminating. Provocative. Inspiring.  Bizarre. Hilarious!

These are a few of the words that have been used to describe the sites, stories and people revealed in the first season of DRIVEN BY VISION.  Season Two of DRIVEN BY VISION continues this exclusive exploration of the wonderful worlds constructed by ordinary people with extraordinary imaginations.  Towering cathedrals of recycled junk.  Castles built by hand from stones dug from a mountainside. Windmills and whirlygigs with explicit messages to offend politicians and charm old girlfriends.  Each site has a unique story to share and a colourful, vibrant way to tell it. 

The stories come from urban streets and country backwaters—from Georgia backwoods to dusty Kansas back-roads, from a Colorado mountainside to a clearing in a Texas bayou and the streets of Selma and Birmingham, Alabama.  Our colourful cast includes a castle builder, a household shrine builder, an artist who prefers to work in the nude as he constructs a hobbit house in the woods near a Ku Klux Klan enclave, and a dyslexic illiterate whose welded tin and steel creations have taken him from hardscrabble sharecropper fields to European art festivals. 

This is an insider’s perspective that is available nowhere else – human stories about how these places came into existence.  What inspired their creation? What obstacles were overcome in the making? And how do some of these sites continue to live and breathe through the dedication of their creators and devotees, while others decay or fall victim to the wrecking ball?  Creation, Inspiration, Redemption, Defiance, Controversy – these are the themes and stories explored in DRIVEN BY VISION. 

Produced by Judy Holm and Michael McNamara for Markham Street Films Inc, Toronto

VisionTV (http://www.visiontv.ca) is Canada’s multi-faith and multicultural broadcaster, dedicated to programming that celebrates diversity and promotes understanding and tolerance among people of different faiths and cultures.

Markham Street Films Inc. (http://www.markhamstreetfilms.com) is a Toronto-based production company specializing in documentary and feature films.  Formed in 2002 by partners Judy Holm and Michael McNamara, Markham Street has originated documentaries such as Flatly Stacked, Meet the Sumdees and Gemini Award winners Radio Revolution and 100 Films & A Funeral.  The company’s feature drama, Victoria Day, recently premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival.  MSF is in pre-production on the feature length documentary Acquainted With the Night and in development on the feature comedies Sleephead and The Return of the Fabulous 7.