Turk Pipkin’s Documentary “Building Hope” Builds Empathy & Community

On a recent Tuesday night I went to the Tribeca Cinema for a screening of “Building Hope,” a documentary written, directed, and narrated by actor and author Turk Pipkin, who with his wife Christy also operates  The Nobelity Project. The film chronicles the building of the Mahiga Hope High School in rural Kenya, which now completed, is educating more than 800 students  each year. The film got an Audience Award at SXSW in 2011 and it’s easy to see why–it’s very watchable and moving, with a genuinely uplifting message, all without lapsing into saccharine simplicities. The school they designed and built with the labor of local tradespeople is also a model for sustainability, as they engineered an adjacent basketball court whose roof catches and saves rain water, providing much of what’s needed for the entire facility, in this region prone to drought. I highly recommend the film for anyone interested in education, the progress of young people in the developing world and sustainable design. It’s also a tight narrative with many memorable characters, just a fine nonfiction film.

At a restaurant near the Tribeca Cinema afterward I met an Austin native now living in Brooklyn, musician and singer Kat Edmonson, who wrote a song that’s in the soundtrack of “Building Hope.” It was fun talking with Kat and her boyfriend, Aaron, also in the music biz. Since that night I’ve enjoyed listening to her music. At Kat’s website, you can listen to a free download of her winsome love song, “Nobody Knows That.” When Turk sat down at our table, it was clear that she and Turk go back a ways. A thoughtful, friendly Texan, Pipkin’s visit to NYC coincided with the availability of the companion Building Hope book, and the imminent availability of the documentary in ITunes. I’m surprised to say, though Pipkin has written 10 books, I wasn’t familiar with him until Jette Momant of PR by the Book in Austin invited me to the screening. I’ve since learned he had a stand-up career doing comedy on the road with Rodney Dangerfield; appeared as the ping pong ball juggler in “Waiting for Guffman,” Christopher Guest’s 1996 mockumentary; written many TV shows; played a recurring character in “The Sopranos”; published two novels, one with Algonquin Press; and co-authored The Tao of Willie, with Willie Nelson, who also appears on-screen in “Building Hope.” Here’s a link to the trailer for this exceptional documentary, and below the video are photos, most of which I took at the screening, and some of the film itself from the theater’s screen: