Over the summer, Pelhamite Emilie Kelly shot the documentary “The Grand Trans-American Cornhole Quest,” a film that asks strangers across the United States, “What does it mean to be an American?” The interviews are each done over a simple game of cornhole.

The goal of the film is to “explore how people and communities connect with each other in the context of Covid-19 and recent political polarization,” said Kelly, a graduate of Pelham Memorial High School. Due to the open-ended nature of her question, the documentary focuses on comparing people’s answers and looks at the differences in various people’s opinions.

“People are nicer and more logical than you think, and that we all, regardless of our differences, care about our home, whatever we define that to be,” said Kelly.

Using cornhole, Kelly said she was able to keep the interviews to one person at a time. The game is easily transportable, popular and can be played almost anywhere. Kelly and her crew asked people if they would like to be in an interview and play cornhole. Though most declined, she was able to interview around four people a day for ten minutes each.

Kelly had no documentary experience prior to this production. Preparation, filming and editing took about a year, and the documentary includes a total of 215 interviews, with most of the funding coming from Reed College in Oregon. It will be released on YouTube on The Grand Trans-American Cornhole Quest channel on Dec. 2.

The crew drove to each location, strategically planned to each be four hours apart. There were five to seven people, including Kelly, helping at all times. Kelly edited the film.