Documentaries set in the Trump-era US often expose bitterness and hostility. In a sharply polarised society, communities and even families turn against each other. Race and gender have become battlegrounds. Fault lines and fissures seem to appear everywhere.
That’s why Holler for Service, the new feature doc from German filmmaking couple Ole Elfenkaemper and Kathrin Seward (premiering in DOK Leipzig’s German competition) comes as such a surprise. They have found a small corner of rural Georgia where an old-fashioned sense of community, that seems to come from a different era in American history, still prevails.
The main character is Kellie, who runs the hardware store in the town of Lumpkin, in Stewart County, Georgia. She’s a queer woman in the South, but her store is a bastion of good-natured tolerance. Kellie may get ornery when her deliveries don’t arrive on time but she has become a figurehead for the community. Everyone seems to know her. Everyone likes her.
“We found her through our previous film,” Seward explains how they stumbled on Kellie and her hardware store while making An Hour from the Middle of Nowhere (2023). This film, also shot in Georgia, was about an immigration lawyer and his clients. It has a scene where someone needs something from the store.
“We drove up and asked Kellie if we could film in there. She was super welcoming and nice. That evening, we struck by there again and the whole thing started. Then, we hung out there all the time. We stopped there for lunch, just to get the gossip from the town,” the filmmakers remember how their fascination with her grew.
The next idea was “to make a whole film about her.” The first scenes were shot in 2021 but the filmmakers returned to short the main part of the documentary in the autumn of 2024.
Holler for Service is filmed in quiet, deliberately observational style. “We really had the idea of just lingering…putting the camera somewhere and hoping that whatever happened in the frame would work and make a scene. It was difficult in the beginning. You always have the urge to movie the camera…but you just have to trust yourself, leave the camera there and hope something will come out of it that you can use in the film,” Elfenkaemper describes the painstaking methodology.
The intention was to “make a slow film.” There aren’t many cuts. The directors let the action unfold in its own time.
They can’t hide their delight at being chosen for DOK Leipzig and they speculate that one of the reasons for its selection may be that “in times of ultra-crazy political divisions,” their film shows people “getting along.”
Lumpkin is not an especially prosperous place. It doesn’t have much in the way of shops, cafes or bars. That means the hardware store has become a focal point for the townsfolk. It sells everything imaginable: all kinds of feed, giant scythes, wires, tape, racoon contraptions, devices for picking up pecans, and every gardening or DIY implement you might possibly need. Equally importantly, it offers conversation and connection.
“The hardware store is one of the few remaining places that is open every day and where people can come in. This is also something that keeps the community together,” Elfenkaemper suggests.
It helps that the townsfolk don’t discuss politics in the store. If they have different opinions to their neighbours, they keep them to themselves.
Elfenkaemper and Seward have had colourful careers. The former has been a photojournalist working in the Balkans and the Middle East, and covered the post-2011 revolution in Egypt. The latter works as a line producer for German production outfit, Story House Productions. In 2018, while on holiday in the US, they made Viva House, a short about a food pantry that has served a disadvantaged Baltimore community for almost 50 years.
On another trip to the US in late 2018, they headed down toward New Orleans. That’s when they learned en route about the immigration centre in Lumpkin that featured in An Hour from The Middle of Nowhere – and that’s what eventually brought them to Kellie.
“She was surprised because she didn’t understand why her life would be of interest to anyone,” Elfenkaemper remembers Kellie’s response to being chosen as the subject of the documentary. Nonetheless, when he asked if he could film in the store, she just looked at him and said, “I don’t care.”
“Who she is in the film is like how she was to us. She really didn’t mind. She couldn’t understand what we wanted from her, but then it dawned on her that her role in the community was maybe much bigger than she had ever thought.”
Kellie lives on her own. “I think now she has the store and this is basically what she lives for and what she really loves. It would be nice for her to have a partner…but the store is basically a full-time job, seven days a week. But I think she finds a lot of quiet and peace with her animals.”
The store is at its busiest during hunting season. Stewart County has a huge deer population and attracts hunters from all over the US. For most of the time, though, Kellie’s customers are the local townsfolk.
Holler for Service was filmed on a minuscule budget. “There was no funding. We took our vacation for four weeks, booked the flights,” Elfenkaemper explains. Based in Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin. Elfenkaemper and Seward have been making documentary films together for more than a decade through their company, Walnut + Schultz Productions.
The executive producers credited, Rita Ellis and Mike Ellis, were friends from Columbus who lent them a car and gave them a place to stay. “There was no outside funding. Basically, we did everything ourselves.”
Kellie has never been to Europe before but is due at DOK Leipzig this week for the film’s premiere. “She is staying with us for a week and then she is flying back. It was a little difficult for her to find people to work the store when she is gone but she managed – and we are very excited that she is coming.”
The filmmakers don’t yet have a sales agent or distributors but hope someone will “hit us up” in Leipzig.
What next? They have a very young daughter and Elfenkaemper is on paternity leave for the next six or seven months. “We will see what kind of project comes next… If you do this twice in a row, making films in the United States without funding, it drains your private budget,” he admits.
