03/23/2026
The Best Documentary Film Award Goes to:
Making Ice Cream
Directed by Danyelle M Greene
“Making “sugar-full” homemade ice cream was always a family tradition filled with togetherness, laughter, and the sweet taste of home. But when the matriarch of our family passed more than 20 years ago, the tradition seemed to slowly melt away. In Making Ice Cream, my mother, Abigail, searches for a new recipe to rediscover the sweet taste and joyous memories that Grandma poured into every spoonful.”
Director Statement
Our senses hold memories. A familiar smell, sound, taste can bring us back home. Making Ice Cream was created from a desire to rediscover the recipe for the sweet taste of my grandma’s homemade ice cream. With no exact recipe left behind, my family and I started with a generic one online. We added sweet cream, much more sugar, and molded the mixture, trying to approximate the taste (as close to how we remembered it).
While making this documentary, I found the one clip of VHS home video that we have of my grandmother. I not only hear her voice for the first time in 20 years, I got to see how much her playful personality is reflected in my mom and I.
This short documentary isn’t just about dessert. It’s about the process of making and memory: the clink of the whisk in the mixing bowl, the hum of the churning machine, the taste of the sweet cream before it’s even finished. Each moment brought pack pieces of the past.
The memory of my grandma, who passed more than 20 years ago, is at the heart of this short film. My mother’s voice guides the story as she remembers how homemade ice cream always brought the family together.
The verité style of the documentary is reminiscent of old home movies, where those behind the camera and in front are in the moment—capturing the experience—together.
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