A New Documentary on South Bend

After seven months of filming, Ryan Blaske and Zach Schrank have today released Big Enough, Small Enough - South Bend in Transition, a full-length documentary on the city of South Bend during a liminal moment. A moment recently described by Jason Miller in the Los Angeles Times as “hopeful, energetic — and tense.”

The documentary features striking vistas, sounds of city life, and interviews with twenty-two South Bend residents. From the opening scene above the Keller Park neighborhood to the close above downtown, it feels like home.

Watch it on Vimeo, Amazon Prime Video, or Youtube, and read a statement from Ryan and Zach below.

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South Bend is haunted by deep wounds in the city’s past while grappling with its fragile future. For more than 50 years after Studebaker closed it has struggled to determine its identity, but it is beginning to change rapidly. What type of place is South Bend to South Benders in 2020? Rustbelt city? Miniature Detroit? Or has it shaken off the cloak of failure and begun to reinvent itself? Is it a beta-city? College town? A big little town? A small big city? And what happens in the middle of this transition when the mayor of our city seeks an unlikely run for the Presidency? In what ways does it build unity but also highlight the divisions within it, complicating the story we tell of ourselves.

We are proud to call South Bend home and excited to be part of the transition as the city confronts itself in ways it is unaccustomed to on the ground locally and in the national news. It is a unique time in our city’s history as it undergoes its most dramatic shift since the collapse of Studebaker in 1963. Living in and being from South Bend we find it to be at a turning point, still trying to find its footing. We recognized the challenge of defining the character of the city as it was thrust in the national spotlight and were motivated to capture a snapshot of this liminal moment. As an independent project, from July to December 2019, we set out to ask these questions and find honest answers from a range of voices fighting for renewal in the city. The film covers several themes related to industrial decline and rebound, race relations, small business innovation, “town-gown” divide, the LGBTQ community, and a newly flourishing arts and cultural scene. We held conversations with people around South Bend to capture how residents were experiencing its changes, embracing its new life, and confronting its enduring problems - thinking about it all as the mayor runs for president.

Thank you, 
Zach Schrank and Ryan Blaske

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This documentary was produced by South Bend-based filmmaker Ryan Blaske and IUSB professor Zach Schrank.

Interviewees include Lloyd Ketchum, Dennis Burns, Kathy Burnette, Jim Ward, Angelo Williams, Sara Stewar, Shaun Maeyens, Sam Centellas, Kat Redding, Shahir Rizk, Alex Ann Allen, Willow Wetherall, Barbara Sutton, Marty Mechtenberg, Brendyn Cane, Juan Constantino, Patrick Quigley, H.R. Jung, Willie Coates Jr., Jennifer Lister, Abigail Gillan, and Jacob Titus.