Hughes Hubbard Goes Behind the Camera For New Documentary

Hughes Hubbard & Reed played a supporting role in production of a documentary that is appearing at film festivals across the country.

“American Commune” is the debut feature of sisters Rena Mundo Croshere and Nadine Mundo, who were born and raised on The Farm, the nation’s largest and longest-lasting commune. Their documentary offers a personal look inside the US counterculture movement by chronicling their return to The Farm, located in the backwoods of rural Tennessee.

Founded in 1971 by 300 members, including the Mundo sisters’ parents, The Farm morphed from being a hippie commune into a profit-making agrarian collective. The sisters left The Farm in 1985 at the respective ages of 12 and 9 and moved to California with their mother.

The film has been supported by several arts grants and has played in festivals in San Francisco, New Orleans, Toronto, Woodstock and other cities and towns. In November 2013, Hagit Elul, who supervised the Hughes Hubbard team, and Hughes Hubbard alum Sarah Wertheimer took a stroll down the red carpet for the New York City premiere of the film at DOC NYC, the city’s largest documentary-only film festival.

The film has garnered coverage and rave reviews in ABCNews.com, The Hollywood Reporter, The Times-Picayune and other news outlets.

In addition to Elul and Wertheimer, Natasha Reed, Kamanta Kettle and Alison Peyser represented the sisters’ production company, Mundo Films, in negotiating a license agreement for photographs to be used in the documentary and a film distribution agreement providing for the film’s worldwide distribution. The team also registered a copyright in the film. Taylor Herman assisted the team by drafting an independent contractor agreement between the sisters and Mundo Films.