Clear the List - Anniversary Update
Today marks 2 years since the 14- way paired kidney exchange featured in our documentary, “Clear the List”. We would like to congratulate all the recipients and the donors on this special day! As we think back on that week, we are so grateful for each person who participated and allowed us (and the cameras) into such a special time in their lives- thank you so much! When Ashley first had the idea for a documentary, she was still in the hospital bed after her transplant in 2019. She shared the idea with me and little did we know where the Lord would bring us over the next several years. With the help of Dr. Matemavi, we were able to tell this beautiful story. After over a year of filming, we were left with the clay in our hands. With so much amazing footage, it was certainly hard to edit it all down. The editing process took several months, right up until the night before our premiere in April of this year! What an incredible time that was.
Since then, we have further refined and improved the documentary to give clarity to those who aren’t directly involved in the transplant world. Our hope is that the documentary will soon reach as many potential living kidney donors as possible! And of course be an encouragement to all those still waiting- to see the joy and hope that so many were given that week back in December ‘23. It’s been a big learning process for us attempting to distribute our first feature-length documentary. We are not the type of people to give up, despite facing what seems like obstacle after obstacle. Although we’ve hit a few bumps in the road along the way, we believe God has a big plan for this documentary and the best is yet to come.
There has been a lot going on behind the scenes, and this project is so complex. It’s been a long time coming and certainly has required a lot of patience on our end. In our everyday work as filmmakers, we are used to filming a video, editing it, and releasing it all within a few months time on our corporate projects, so this feature-length documentary has been a big learning curve for us. Even with nearly nine years of working full time as filmmakers, the mainstream film industry is just a whole different game when it comes to distribution and networking. Here’s a little timeline of our documentary story and recap of how far we’ve come:
August 2019: Ashley receives a kidney transplant from her living donor (my dad, Roy Chisholm!) and shares the idea of a documentary with her surgeon, Dr. Felicitas Koller, while still in the hospital at UMMC.
2020: While recovering from her transplant, a global pandemic occurs - halting nearly all of our projects.
March 2021: Dr. Praise Matemavi of UMMC Transplant works on grant applications to produce the documentary with the mission of increasing awareness in living kidney donors for Mississippi.
April 2022: With a grant secured for the project, we meet with Dr. Matemavi and Dr. Koller to formulate documentary plans. RD comes up with the name, Clear The List.
May 2022: Dr. Matemavi works to get hospital permissions, grant requirements, medical release forms, board approvals, legal forms, media access, and all things necessary to complete before filming — a huge undertaking is an understatement, and we are so thankful for her hard work to make this happen.
October 2023: Everything is approved! Living Donor Coordinator, Nikki Little, recommends reaching out to dialysis patient, Coach Herbert Davis to participate in the documentary.
October 2023: Ashley & RD officially begin filming, starting with MRA Football Coach, Herbert Davis.
November 2023: Coach Davis and his donor agree to participate in a 14-person kidney exchange.
December 2023: 7 donors and 7 recipients are filmed in a week-long kidney exchange. This historic event for UMMC becomes the heartbeat of the documentary — we will forever be grateful to everyone involved.
January 2024 - March 2025: continued filming of follow-up interviews, events, additional hospital scenes + beginning the editing process + planning for a premiere release event + building a website/ branding materials + keeping up with our corporate client work — a juggling act for sure!
March 2025: Interviews with the transplant surgical team are captured and integrated into our editing. The official trailer is released! We meet with UMMC media executives and transplant team for a rough draft, private viewing of Clear The List (there was not a dry eye in the room)
April 2025: After working through most of the night to finish editing and render the fully edited documentary, our computer crashes. On the morning of the premiere, we had to get a new computer to temporarily use. As we were setting up chairs for our premiere at the venue, Duling Hall, the video was rendering and finally finished a few hours (and several prayers) before the event started! Thankfully, the red carpet premiere was a great success and was one of the most memorable events in our lives.
May-June 2025: We begin submitting to Film Festivals, reaching out to possible distribution partners for broadcast/streaming options, and having a couple of local showings with our participants’ communities.
July 2025: Clear The List is selected for the JXN Film Festival and nominated for Best Feature Documentary and Best Picture.
August-December 2025: With some feedback received by a few of the film festival judges, we begin work to update the documentary’s edit by cutting it down in length, adding a few contextual scenes, and a few small details to make it more understandable for a wider audience. We also filmed another interview with UMMC Transplant Nephrologist, Dr. Pradeep Vaitla and additional footage around the state of Mississippi to add in. In this time, we have also submitted to more film festivals and broadcast executives.
What’s Next?
Looking forward, we are excited at the opportunity to show the documentary to as many people as possible. With the help of Dr. Matemavi, we will be taking Clear the List ‘on tour’! Our goal is to show it in as many churches, venues, and community spaces as we can in 2026. If you know of a church or event space that would like to show the documentary- please let us know! Another goal of ours is to have the documentary in a few theaters and ultimately out to a wider streaming audience! Stay tuned for updates on this front. If you have any leads or connections to distributors, we’d love to connect as this is our current hurdle we are navigating.
If you would like more information about hosting a screening, click here and scroll to the form at the bottom of the page: https://www.clearthelist.com/events
We ask and thank you for your prayers as we continue to work to bring this documentary to as many as we can. After witnessing the beautiful miracles of the kidney exchange week and beyond, we know anything is possible!
Again, congratulations to everyone on 2 years! We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-RD and Ashley
