Melinda Augustus doesn’t consider herself a particularly trusting person, but she opened her heart to the filmmakers who developed her story into a documentary.
The film, “The Philosopher Kings,” follows Augustus, 48, a custodian at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and seven other custodians from universities across the nation as they tell their stories, showing audiences that wisdom can come from more than just textbooks and teachers.
Augustus traveled to New York twice for screenings of the film, which won or was nominated for awards at 10 film festivals. She said the chance to travel to such a beautiful area and get the red carpet treatment was amazing.
The Florida Museum of Natural History will host a free screening of the film for the public Feb. 16, said Kelly Donovan, a communications specialist at the museum.
Augustus, who lives in Alachua, was approached during the summer of 2008 to be part of the film after her supervisor, Gloria Grant, suggested her to filmmakers who came to UF looking for potential participants. They returned to film her later that summer and spent a week shadowing Augustus at work and traveling with her to her childhood home and her mother’s grave. Director Patrick Shen and producer Greg Bennick made her feel comfortable enough to open up for the camera about her experiences, she said.
The hardest part of the filming process for her was talking about her mother, who died more than a decade after a medical accident during the birth of her 15th child left her comatose, she said. Augustus was 9 years old.
“It’s amazing how some things you’ll never get over ever in your whole life,” she said. “I’ll always miss my mom.”
The documentary became a platform for her to begin the healing process by finally talking about what happened to her mother.
“As a child, it’s like a quietness — unspoken,” she said. “I realize now that I have to talk about what’s inside of me because if you hold onto it and it’s never expressed, you carry that with you your whole life.”
Augustus said she’s not the type of person to sit behind a desk all day, and she loves her job at the museum because it keeps her on her toes. She enjoys seeing new faces every day as visitors come to see the exhibits.
She works a second job in the afternoon at a daycare center, and before taking a job at the museum in 2004, she ran her own daycare for 18 years. Sometimes she even sees children from her previous daycare business at the museum. She loves working with children because they are nonjudgmental and love unconditionally, she said.
When she thinks back on her involvement with the film, Augustus said she remembers how friendly and reassuring Shen and Bennick were toward her. She still keeps in touch with them, as well as with several of the other custodians from the film.
Augustus, who first thought the film was just a college student project before realizing it was a much bigger undertaking, said she is proud of the film and that making it was ultimately a refreshing experience.
