“To Be Here: filmed in New England, New York and the Southwest of the US in 2012/2013. It is the last part of my trilogy with INDIA (2005) filmed in Pune and JUNGE KIEFERN / YOUNG PINES (2011) filmed in Japan.”(Ute Aurand)
To Be Here was initially titled America The Beautiful after the patriotic song that originates in a poem by Katherine Lee Bates. Early in the film, a series of close-ups of the hand written poem are combined with portraits of its author. Later on, and throughout the film, Aurand intersects images of landscapes and interiors in New England, New York and Arizona with photographs of exceptional American women, including the African-American activists Hester C. Whitehurst Jeffrey, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. A visit to Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts college for women in Massachusetts, constitutes the central point of the film.
