Celestine (Florida Storm)

Screenings
This trancelike experimental film captures a starry night sky over rural North Florida. A recording of “Florida Storm,” a 1928 hymn written by Judge Jackson in response to the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 — a text that has informed Allison Janae Hamilton’s work for years — plays on a loop underneath various celestial scenes made from time-lapse astrophotography. The film hearkens to the history of North Florida’s turpentine industry — a brutal system of labor where workers began the workday before sunrise and toiled until well after sunset — and contemplates how their only moments of rest or leisure must have taken place under the cover of this starry expanse.
Directors Spotlight

Allison Janae Hamilton
Director
Allison Janae Hamilton is an award-winning artist and filmmaker who draws on her upbringing in the American South to weave themes of landscape, folklore, and mythology within a stunning visual language. Hamilton’s body of work considers notions of Americana and our relationships to land in the face of a changing environment.
- Year 2025
- Runtime 12 minutes
- Country United States
- Language English
- Director Allison Janae Hamilton
- Producer Allison Janae Hamilton
- Cinematographer Russell Mick
- Editor Dónal Foreman
- Composer Judge Jackson
- Sound Design Blair Wells
- Music Judge Jackson (arr. Candice Hoyes)
- Premiere Philadelphia