'The Rise of the Creative Class' Film To Premiere in Asheville

ASHEVILLE — The film based on Richard Florida's best-selling book, "The Rise of the Creative Class," is set to have its world premiere in Asheville.

And more than 200 people are already signed up to attend the event.

The Dec. 18 premiere of the documentary film, also titled "The Rise of the Creative Class," was organized and is sponsored by the Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council (BREC), AdvantageWest, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce's IT Council, BB&T and an unnamed private donor. The event will be held in conjunction with the BREC Holiday Networking party at The Orange Peel social club in Asheville.

Jim Roberts, executive director of BREC, was able to bring the premiere to Asheville after meeting the film's creator and producer, Giuli Dummit, at the Emerging Issues Forum last year in Raleigh. Roberts says Dummit was there talking to Florida about creating the film. He then met her at follow-up events in Memphis and Greensboro.

"She was recently at the Greensboro event and told me the film was almost done, and I asked if we could show the film at our Holiday Networking event," Roberts explains to Local Tech Wire. "I did not know we would have the world premiere of the finished film. So we have the benfits of being in the right places at the right times and being assertive enough to ask."

Dummit will be in Asheville, participating in the premiere. She is a resident of Winston Salem and partner in FilmHouse Productions, but has loftier goals.

"She has interest in growing the North Carolina film industry," Roberts says, "and Asheville plays a big role in the state's film industry including Blue Ridge Motion Picture studio."

While Dummit's film "The Rise of the Creative Class" has been seen in "very rough" format at a recent conference in San Diego, the Asheville event will be the premiere of the finished product.

"Most rural areas can't afford the Richard Florida speaking fee, so this is a way for them to get the general message through an affordable DVD," Roberts says. "The DVD also has an interactive piece."

Beyond the book

Florida's book promotes the theory that economic regions have to retain, attract, engage and empower the most creative and talented people to create jobs in the knowledge based economy. Florida, a professor of regional economics at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Brookings Institute, concentrates on the 4 T's of a region: Technology, Talent, Tolerance and Territorial Assets.

In his book and speeches, Florida emphasizes a sense of urgency by pointing out that the baby boomer generation will begin to retire in the year 2010. He says cities need to be proactive today to retain and attract the much smaller 24-35 year old generation, which is less than half of the size of the baby boomers.

In May, Florida convened a conference in Memphis of The 100 Creatives, selected from over 400 nominations representing several states and countries. Roberts was among those chosen to participate, after meeting Florida at earlier events.

Roberts and the other participants in Memphis created a three page report about people who seek creative infrastructure. Florida then discussed these findings at the Annual Conference of Mayors in Denver in what has been dubbed the Memphis Manifesto.

The film is based in part on these conferences in Memphis, Denver and other U.S. cities, as well as other international events.

Robters said it is his hope that the film will serves as a way to promote Florida's message beyond the book, which he says can be difficult to grasp for some.

"In my opinion, it will serve as a way to summarize the book and his theories," he says. "Most economic developers and elected officials have a copy of this book. Most are collecting dust and they miss the message."

N.C. and the creative class

Florida and his staff at his consulting firm, Catalytix, have been hired by organizations in North Carolina more than any other state. He has already held events and done studies of the creative class in Raleigh and Greensboro.

In his national ranking of cities using a creativity index based on creative class, high tech, innovation and diversity, three N.C. cities appear. Raleigh-Durham is the highest at number six, followed by Charlotte at 28 and Greensboro at 41.

Now, Asheville hopes to cash in. According to the Florida's Innovation Index, Asheville has more patents per capita than Charlotte and Greensboro, so it's on the right track.

"Our state is hungry for job creation and staying ahead of the curve in the nationwide and worldwide competition to help our citizens," Roberts said. "The hottest discussion topic in western North Carolina is jobs. The Creative Class jobs have great salaries and challenge the minds of the workers to innovate everyday. In Asheville and western North Carolina, we have the Creative Class and we are working on the business and technology infrastructure to help them be more successful."

In order to attend the world premiere of "The Rise of the Creative Class" on Dec. 18 at The Orange Peel in Asheville, RSVP by Dec. 16 to Jim Roberts at 828-273-9862 or jroberts@awnc.org.

BREC: www.ncmtns.biz

Creative Class: www.creativeclass.org