‘225’: Flipping the script

Sitting in Strands Café, sipping from a large glass mug of hot tea, surrounded by exposed red brick, old-world artwork and dark wide-plank wood floors, Donna Reichman is just around the corner from her downtown office. But the new executive director of the Baton Rouge Film Commission feels like she could be in Europe. This is how Reichman, an industry veteran who took the reins of the local film office after Amy Mitchell-Smith departed last fall to launch Cienega Motion Picture Group, sees the city she has called home for the past year: not as what it is now, but what it can be. In the hands of skilled professionals, what can Baton Rouge look and feel like on a movie screen? For Reichman, every neighborhood, skyline and dirt road is a location—in the Midwest, the East Coast, Southern California. Every overlooked environment is an opportunity, be it pristine or blighted. This is what the industry calls “cheating.” And Reichman aims to have Baton Rouge doing a lot more of it. Read the full story by 225 Editor Jeff Roedel here.