UF alumnus Michael Beach Nichols traded medical school for filmmaking.
Nichols, 35, went to Amherst College in Massachusetts as an American studies major from 1998 to 2002. He planned to go to medical school, but upon graduation he decided to make movies.
In 2007, Nichols began his documentary filmmaking career at UF where he did a two-year master’s program.
In 2009, Nichols moved to Brooklyn and created his first original piece, “Flex Is Kings.”
“I had no background other than the fact that I liked movies,” Nichols said.
Now, Nichols and his friend Christopher K. Walker own No Weather Productions and have a documentary making its way through the country’s film festivals.
In August 2013, the two read a New York Times article about a white supremacist, Craig Cobb, who moved to a town of 24 people in North Dakota with the intention of taking over the local government.
A month later, another article came out about a supremacist family that moved there to help Cobb.
“We were interested in the first story, but we didn’t think it would stick,” Nichols said. “When we read the second article, we realized it had momentum.”
Nichols and Walker called the mayor of Leith, North Dakota, and asked for permission to film the story of the attempted takeover. They went up three times in 2013 to film the battle between farmers and Aryan supremacists in the rural town.
The film, titled “Welcome to Leith,” made its first festival appearance in January at the Sundance Film Festival and will appear in nine festivals this month, Nichols said.
It made its debut on the east coast at the 2015 Florida Film Festival in Maitland, Florida, on Saturday, and will have a second showing Tuesday. Individual tickets are $11 after 5 p.m. and $9 before 5 p.m.
Nicole Fasano, a nursing junior at the University of Central Florida, said she thinks films like “Welcome to Leith” are important for college students to watch.
“For a lot of people, they hear about things going on in the world, but it doesn’t faze them,” Fasano, 20, said. “When you can visualize something happening in the world, it’s something you carry with you and remember. Movies are probably the best way to inspire people to be involved or make a change.”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 4/13/2015 under the headline “UF alum’s documentary premieres at 2015 FL Film Festival”]
Michael Nichols (left), a UF alum and filmmaker, operates a camera while his friend and partner, Christopher Walker, does the same. Their latest film, titled “Welcome to Leith,” will make its East coast debut at the 2015 Florida Film Festival in April.
