By Kevin Zimmermann
Bea Travis
(WHBL) â Sheboygan County may not strike you as âred carpetâ material, but one filmmaker is convinced that her hometown area might be just right for feature film production and the arts opportunities that it would bring for local students.
Bea Travis grew up in Plymouth, studied filmmaking at UW-Madison and Prague, Czechoslovakia, and became a successful New York-based TV producer on the Emmy-winning true crime series âA Crime to Rememberâ.  But Travis never forgot about  Sheboygan County, and returned here in 2017 to start making movies with her venture called âThe Belladonna Film Projectâ.
Travis, along with collaborator and Plymouth native Hannah Kaiser, will kick that project into high gear with a free virtual event called âRising Tidesâ on Thursday, May 20th with help from the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation, and the Small Business Development Center at UW-Green Bay.  The focus will be short film segments on some 18 new women-owned businesses in the Sheboygan area that were hard-hit by the pandemic less than two years after they started.  âRising Tidesâ will also include a live Q&A session for viewers, and a live panel discussion about women leading social change movements in Sheboygan County.