Billy Porter Joins Documentary Short ‘Freeman Vines’ as Executive Producer (EXCLUSIVE)

Billy Porter has joined the Oscar-qualified documentary short, “Freeman Vines,” as executive producer.

Directors André Robert Lee and Tim Kirkman’s film is a haunting portrait of 82-year-old Freeman Vines, a sculptor and guitar-maker in rural Fountain, North Carolina, who carves some of his instruments from lumber taken from a tree used in the lynching of a young Black man named Oliver Moore. As Vines faces multiple myeloma and diabetes late in life, the film captures his philosophy, humor, and unflinching confrontation with the legacy of racism in the American South. 

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“Freeman Vines was a fierce, extraordinary human, and this expression of his story is simply gorgeous,” Porter said in a statement Thursday. “The life of an artist can be a hard road, and Freeman navigated a complicated community and history, but he discovered what it meant to live in truth with a freedom he claimed for himself. We should all be so lucky. ‘Freeman Vines,’ directed by André Robert Lee and Tim Kirkman, offers a profound lesson about human connection, resilience, and creativity. I am honored to be part of this project, and I hope audiences will truly witness it.”

The film took home top honors at multiple Academy-qualifying festivals, including best documentary short at the Tallahassee Film Festival and screened at Tribeca, RiverRun and Florida Film Festivals, as well as selections at Woodstock, Nantucket, Indy Shorts, SCAD Savannah, and other leading showcases.

Earlier this fall, the film was acquired by Switchboard Magazine and is currently available to screen via their YouTube Channel.

In addition to Porter’s company Incognegro, producer Gill Holland’s company The Group Entertainment presents the film in association with Lee’s Many Things Productions, Kirkman’s T42 Entertainment and Music Maker Foundation.

“Billy Porter is an American icon in the arts, and it is an honor to partner with him on ‘Freeman Vines,'” Lee and Kirkman said. “We are excited to have Billy’s extraordinary talent and voice on this journey to help bring Freeman’s life story and life’s work to an even greater audience.”

Switchboard founder and editor in chief Celia Aniskovich said, “’Freeman Vines’ story sits at the intersection of music, art, race, and spiritual inquiry — the exact kind of layered, character-driven storytelling Switchboard was built to support. As we bring together four Oscar-qualified shorts for a collective awards campaign, ‘Freeman Vines’ is a soul-stirring cornerstone of that slate. We’re thrilled to welcome Billy Porter to the team as we introduce this film to wider audiences.”

“Freeman Vines” is one of four Oscar-qualified shorts — alongside “Poreless,” “Rat Rod” and “Saving Superman” — being championed in Switchboard’s collective awards campaign this season.