People say that history matters. That it’s important. But they don’t usually tell us why it matters. Or how.
We do. It’s in our stories. It’s in ourselves.
est. 2018
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
executive producers
Tad Størmer
Noelle Renée Bercy
production team
Harpa Guðrún Jónsdóttir
Alli Schaum
Jennipher Tucy
Kath Fudurich
Myron Curtis
Abi Schumann
Carolyn Wilson
Størmerlige Films was born in December 2018 out of the belief that history-related projects could be engaging, entertaining, and inspiring when based on a firm foundation of authentic, accurate storytelling that effectively reaches target audiences across the digital ecosystem. The team firmly believes in a mission to spotlight where history went wrong, where stories were hidden or erased, and explore ways to make it right, to make those voices heard again. We’re committed to embracing and projecting the experiences and perspectives of forgotten and underrepresented communities, and sparking dialogue about the possibilities for a future that might emerge from a fresh understanding of our past.
With a production team that uniquely blends the creativity of Disney and Marvel with the scholarship of Harvard and Johns Hopkins, its first efforts were digital storytelling projects to spotlight Black, Latinx, and Asian Pacific Islander history for Disney Citizenship. It then expanded to long-form documentary-style projects, such as I FLY, the story of the first Muslim ladies figure skater to compete in a hijab, and THE GOOD AMERICANS, an exploration of the loyalist experience during the American Revolution.
The global events surrounding the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement in the summer of 2020 comprehensively changed the studio’s mission and vision. Recognizing that important, socially aware audiences are pursuing reliable, relatable, accessible, substantive history-related content, the studio, inspired by the words of Executive Producer Noelle Renée Bercy, developed WE ARE OUR HISTORY as a digital series in which a diverse cast of presenters use their powerful voices to spotlight the places where our collective history went wrong and identify the ways that we might make it right. From that moment, we haven’t looked back from a commitment to taking audiences into the murky world of historical mythmaking, to expose the ways it has misinformed our modern sense of our ourselves, with a constant, critical attention to capturing relevant stories with complexity, fairness, truth, and independence.
WE ARE OUR HISTORY has grown to a first season of 14 episodes starring NOELLE BERCY (Marvel’s CLOAK & DAGGER), BRITTANY ISHIBASHI (Marvel’s RUNAWAYS), MADISON LAWLOR (Netflix’s DADDY ISSUES), TENZING NORGAY TRAINOR (Disney Channel’s LIV & MADDIE), JESSICA MATTEN (APTN’s TRIBAL), EDEN ESPINOSA (Disney Channel’s TANGLED: THE SERIES), NATHANIEL ARCAND (CBS’s FBI: AMERICA’S MOST WANTED), ALAINE CHARTRAND (2x Canadian National Ladies Figure Skating Champion) and more.
True Heroes Are Timeless.
Team
TAD STØRMER
Executive Producer, Director
New England-based Tad Størmer is a storyteller who is deeply curious and concerned about the power of national myths driving cultural and social divisions around the globe, threatening to dramatically change life as we know it and severely limit our collective ability to address common challenges. After an Emmy Award-winning film on transatlantic economics and the slave trade in the 18th Century, Tad served as a producer of heritage and civics-related productions for Disney Citizenship, and as a production adviser on historical content for Walt Disney Studios and C-SPAN. He then created Størmerlige Films to develop history-related productions, from micros to features, that promote engaging and challenging digital storytelling. After earning an MA in History from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in History from the University of Virginia, he was a Fellow and an Instructor at Harvard University, and is currently is a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins. With Transatlantic roots, Scandinavian style, and an American heart, Tad’s creative process is an integration of his humanistic, cross-cultural background, his experience across diverse fields, and his passion for storytelling that finds new meaning in restoring unheard voices.
NOELLE RENEE BERCY
Executive Producer
Noelle was born in New Orleans to a large family with three siblings — Jeremy, Jourdan, and Nalani — and a long, diverse, and distinguished Louisiana heritage. Her professional training began when she successfully auditioned her way into The New Orleans Center of Creative Arts — Louisiana’s premier school for arts education. There she learned from diverse industry professionals who stressed intensive instruction with transformational vision. She quickly booked roles as the youngest cast member in challenging musical productions including “Purlie” and “Dreamgirls”. She also gained experience with the New Orleans Ballet Association. Noelle appeared most recently in the influential breakout role of Evita Fusilier, a Recurring Guest Star in 14 of the 20 episodes of Marvel's CLOAK & DAGGER. She is now expanding her perspective in telling stories on both sides of the camera to include directing and producing with Størmerlige Films’ WE ARE OUR HISTORY series, in which she appears as the primary presenter.
ALLI SCHAUM
Assistant Producer
A Northern California native, Alli is a senior at Brown University where she double concentrates in History (with a focus in Law and Society) and English. She has developed a course about gender issues in Renaissance Italy, worked in the Publications department of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), and archived and curated art for Franklin Furnace. With a particular interest in multi-media representations of history, she is passionate about finding ways of interpreting stories for new audiences through music, photography, videography, art, and more.
We go where our history went wrong, to see how we can make it right.
Other Projects
documentary FEATURE
THE GOOD AMERICANS: THE LOST REVOLUTION
docuseries
THE SISTERS
new media docuseries
RESISTANCE & FREEDOM
THE GOOD AMERICANS: THE LOST REVOLUTION, narrated by Amber Marshall (CBC’s HEARTLAND), explores the experience of the loyalists in the American Revolution, White and Black Americans who chose British liberty over American promises of it, and the world created by their expulsion, including Canada and The Bahamas. It explores a central theme of the exclusionary meaning of freedom adopted by American patriots, juxtaposed against what was achieved by those they saw as enemies to liberty — and the independent peoples they became.
THE SISTERS tells the story of four young women — Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia Nikolaevna, more commonly remembered as the daughters of the last Tsar of Russia. Still shrouded in myth and misconception, the series is an attempt to rescue their authentic experience as they were thrown into a strikingly modern world, one shaped by political violence and extremism, which no amount of wealth or status could protect them from. Based primarily on the sisters’ surviving diaries and correspondence, and inspired by the work by Helen Rappaport: “The Romanov Sisters” and “The Last Days of the Romanovs.”
RESISTANCE & FREEDOM explores the price paid by millions of people in countries occupied by totalitarian regimes in the 20th Century, and the lessons those people learned, and have applied, about the real meaning of liberty and the importance of democracy to securing it. Each episode of the series focuses on one country, a site that reminds us of its resistance, and examples of how their freedom is preserved — and enjoyed — today. Locations include the Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia; the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga, Latvia; the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in Vilnius, Lithuania; the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, Poland; the Museum of Danish Resistance in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Norway’s Resistance Museum in Oslo, Norway.