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By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)

After leaving several sticky notes on the windshield, Matt Solari finally met the dude who lived in the ambulance.

Solari, a media production major, was working with a team to document van life in Boulder, and quickly ran into a problem: They didn’t know anyone who lived in a van. Their only lead was Solari’s neighbor, Alec Kolodziejczyk, who lived in the ambulance parked down the street.

Getting him to participate was the first breakthrough for the team after many leads fell short. But their perseverance was rewarded in the spring semester, when Boulder Van Life was nominated in the short/long form nonfiction category of the 2024 Heartland Student Emmy Awards. Additionally, in the summer, the film was nominated for the Most Inspirational Film Award from the Oregon Documentary Film Festival.

“I was in the middle of a frantic day when I got a text from my professor saying, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been nominated for a regional Emmy Award,’ and I immediately called my parents to tell them about it,” he said. “This was the first time when I was really able to see a project through from start to end and have it turn out roughly like what I intended at the beginning.”

Solari produced the film for a course called Documentary and Beyond, co-taught by Ross Taylor, associate professor of journalism, and Pat Clark, assistant professor of critical media practices. By collaborating across disciplines, students were encouraged to see the documentary film process from both a journalist’s and a filmmaker’s perspective.

‘Really beautiful and well done’

“Their film taps into a trend many explore in Colorado, throughout the West and beyond. So, it’s a relatable experience that many can connect with,” Taylor said of Solari’s project. “And the cinematography in the film was really beautiful and well done.”

What Solari loved most about the course was having an entire semester to fully flesh out and produce a documentary. After a few rounds of speed-dating-like pitching, he recruited fellow CMCI students Wyatt Martinez, Braxton Fish and Carlos Franco to work with him and explore what draws people to van life.

“I’m interested in the human story and being able to bring someone’s to a larger audience,” Solari said. “Seeing this whole process as a journey changed my mind on what documentary is and how the film reveals itself as you’re making it.”

Solari cast a wide net looking for candidates, and found that some, like Kolodziejczyk—a PhD candidate in chemistry at CU Boulder—see van life as more affordable. Others choose the lifestyle for the freedom and flexibility that comes with it.

But while searching for his subjects, Solari heard “no.” A lot. Even in the case of Kolodziejczyk, Solari had to sell the idea of bringing a film crew into his home.

“I got a lot of rejection—it was a very humbling process,” Solari said. “I talked to about 20 people who were interested, but didn’t have the time or didn’t take me seriously. It was all about celebrating the small victories—and when they started adding up, it gave me confidence to keep going.”

Oscar cred

The team’s next victory came when van lifer Deb Hoak joined the production. Hoak’s participation was particularly exciting for Solari, since she appeared briefly in the��Oscar-winning film Nomadland. Now, she was on his set.��

“I was really impressed with Matt, particularly his work ethic and how he would routinely try to reach out to people,” Taylor said. “He’s a good example of somebody who persevered through that initial difficulty of finding somebody, and succeeded. It takes time and some amount of doggedness and perseverance in storytelling, and this group embodied that.”

Solari and his team had help from both their peers and professors as they presented new iterations of their film. As a class, they brainstormed ways to film dynamic interviews in small spaces and helped them choose clips to streamline the story.��

With one more year to complete his undergraduate degree, Solari is already working on his next big project—a film about environmental sustainability for his honors program. He’s spending the whole academic year following a local farmer to produce another film he’s proud of.��

“As a filmmaker, you get fixated on a topic,” he said.��“I’m really excited to work on it, and getting recognition with the Emmy nomination gives me a lot of fuel for future projects.”��