Derek Wiesehahn

Movies

Let Me Be Me
Cinematography
This coming-of-age story focuses on Kyle Westphal, an isolated autistic boy who’s fascinated by fabric and emerges from an experimental autism treatment program to become a fashion designer. Westphal’s family looks back on twenty years of his development with candor and humor. The film combines observational footage, archival material, and animation to chronicle how a passion for fashion transformed Kyle and his family.
Welcome to Chechnya
Director of Photography
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
Us Kids
Director of Photography
Determined to turn unfathomable tragedy into action, the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida catalyze a powerful, unprecedented youth movement that spreads with lightning speed across the country, as a generation of mobilized youth take back democracy in this powerful coming-of-age story.
Notes from Dunblane: Lessons from a School Shooting
Director of Photography
In the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that took the lives of 20 first graders and their teachers, local clergymen Father Bob Weiss receives a letter from a fellow priest in Dunblane, Scotland, whose community suffered an eerily similar fate in 1996. From across the Atlantic, the two priests forge a poignant bond through the shared experience of trauma and healing.
Milwaukee 53206
Cinematography
53206: a Milwaukee zip code where 62% of the adult male residents have spent time behind bars. A character-driven, immersive ensemble helps tell the stories behind the statistic.
Trapped
Additional Director of Photography
TRAP (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers) laws have been passed by conservative state legislatures in the US and clinics have taken their fight to the courts. Follow the struggles of the clinic workers and lawyers who are on the front lines of a battle to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women.
Newtown
Cinematography
A look at how the community of Newtown, Connecticut came together in the aftermath of the largest mass shooting of schoolchildren in American history.
Misfire: The Rise and Fall of the Shooting Gallery
Director of Photography
A documentary about the influential independent film production company The Shooting Gallery.
God Loves Uganda
Director of Photography
A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to infuse African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting sexual immorality and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow biblical law.
How to Survive a Plague
Director of Photography
A story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time.
I Remember
Cinematography
Set and shot chronologically in natural light over one hour at dusk, I REMEMBER materialized out of this sense of intangible loss and a desire to hold on to memories that, however fleeting, give our lives meaning.