ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
WHITE WATER recounts the life of legendary iconoclast Olympian and four-time world champion kayaker Eric Jackson “EJ” and the first family of kayaking.

SYNOPSIS
WHITE WATER is a feature documentary film by two-time Emmy Award® winner and three-time Emmy Award® nominee Shawna Brakefield-Haase and is the first in a series of films about “unknown legends”.

A family story at its heart, WHITE WATER recounts the life of Eric Jackson, known as the Michael Jordan of kayaking and “father of freestyle kayaking.” The best overall kayakers in the world, his two children Dane and Emily Jackson and son-n-law Nick Troutman are all world champions.

Infected with scarlet fever at age two, thought to be the cause of his 70% hearing loss, one may think this is a story about overcoming adversity. But that’s not the way EJ sees it. Or tells it. Or lives it.

Raising his children in an RV, struggling to survive on sponsor money and panhandling to participate in the Olympic games, he and wife Kristine endured family and peer criticism for living life as they saw it.

In pursuit of the most dangerous whitewater rivers in the world, narrowly escaping death, countless injuries and perhaps the toughest of all, the realities of supporting himself and his family as an athlete in a “non-revenue” sport, EJ rattles our cage of complacency pushing us to consider how far we would go to chase a dream.All three of his children and one grandchild have hearing loss.

WHITE WATER is an exploration into the mind of a visionary, the heart of a champion and the importance of family.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Shawna Brakefield-Haase
PRODUCER Shawna Brakefield-Haase

WEBSITE thebrakefieldcompany.com