Rise
RISE
As climate change erases the Louisiana coast, the last two teenagers on Isle de Jean Charles fight to stay on an island that's been in their family home for generations.
Based on the 2019 short film, Lowland Kids (SXSW 2019).
Stage: Post-Production
Project Type: Documentary
Evoke’s Role: Rise is a grantee and program-related investment of Evoke Media. Evoke founder Sabrina Merage Naim is an Executive Producer.
Meet the filmmakers
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Director
Sandra Winther is a Danish film director and screenwriter based in New York. Her work explores themes of identity, coming-of-age, family, sports, and environmental causes, drawing inspiration from her athletic upbringing and curiosity for the natural world.
She has worked with some of the world’s most culture-defining brands such as Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Beats By Dre, Toyota, Samsung, Puma, Disney, NBA, MTV and more. She enjoys pushing the cinematic expression in a way that is timeless, soulful and striking.
Her documentary ‘Lowland Kids’ about the last teenagers on a sinking Louisiana island premiered at SXSW in 2019 and received the audience award for Best Documentary at Palm Springs Shortfest and a Cinema Eye Honors Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short. The film is currently being developed into a feature with Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures.
Sandra's recent documentary ‘A New Wave’ about world-renowned South African surfer Mikey February and his father premiered at DOC NYC and was released with The New York Times in 2024 with an accompanying Op-Ed written by February.
Award highlights include the True Award for Andel ‘Greener Future’ (2023), Filmmaker of the Future Award at Rhode Island Film Festival (2019), the Nowness Award for Breakthrough Artists for Cultural Excellence in Film and Video (2020), the New York Women in Film Content Creator Award (2019) and a Silver Clio for her work with Beats By Dre (2018). With Nowness, Sandra has created several films as one of their frequent collaborators.
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Producer
Crouse is an award-winning documentary, commercial, and agency producer based in Los Angeles with a diverse and impactful body of work. His documentary debut, Monster Factory (2018), provided an insightful look into professional wrestling, leading to its adaptation into a series for Apple TV+ (2023). His short documentary Lowland Kids (2019), which poignantly humanizes the effects of climate change, was nominated for a Cinema Eye Honors and is currently being developed into a feature documentary with Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures.
Beyond his own projects, Crouse produced Underplayed (2020), a powerful exploration of gender disparity in the electronic music industry, which was the closing night film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). His latest work for FX, The Secrets of Hillsong (2023), investigates the rise and fall of the global Pentecostal church.
Crouse began his career as a commercial line producer and is passionate about integrating the strengths of the advertising and entertainment industries to create compelling visual storytelling. His experience also extends to agency producing, where he uses his expertise to craft campaigns that harness the transformative power of film.
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Producer
Sigrid Dyekjær has produced more than 30 documentary films during the last 22 years. She is the producer of the Oscar nominated film 2020 The Cave by Feras Fayyad where she won an Emmy for best producer and was nominated for a Peabody Award. She won Best Producer at Cinema Eye 2020 for The Cave, and was nominated for Producers Guild of America also in 2020. She premiered her newest documentary film in her new company Real Lava, at Sundance 2022 The Territory by Alex Pritz, which won two awards at Sundance: Audience Award and Jury's Special Award for Best Craft. The film is produced together with Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler, Mother etc.). It was picked up by National Geographic and will be on an Academy Run in 2022. She has produced the Oscar-nominee Hanna Polak's Something Better to Come, which had theatrical release in the US and won more than 80 awards. For this, Sigrid was nominated at the Producers Guild of America Awards 2016 for Outstanding Producer of Documentary. Sigrid is a Producers Guild of America member.
