Corey Jackson and Rippin Sindher are joined by Rippin’s brother Gurinder Sindher (left) at The Big Tell showcase. Photo contributed by Rippin Sindher

A childhood friendship has resulted in a short film about Fresno’s racist past and plans to produce even more of the kind of content they lacked growing up.

Selma natives Rippin Sindher and Corey Jackson recently produced and premiered the film “ZONE” about the lasting effects of redlining in the Central Valley.

The film was selected as part of the 2023 cohort of The Big Tell Film Contest for 5-minute documentaries featuring stories from the Central Valley.

Redlining, banned in California for more than 50 years, is the practice of categorically denying housing to individuals based on race. It often came in the form of racist covenants in property deeds — a legacy the governor ordered wiped from county recorders offices in 2021.

One deed restriction discovered on a home built in 1952 in Reedley reads “this property is sold on condition it is not resold to or occupied by the following races: Armenian, Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Syrian, Negros, Filipinos or Chinese.”

The repercussions of redlining continue to play out today in the Fresno’s most impoverished neighborhoods, often having an impact on commercial development.

Redlining was the start of a seemingly indefinite divide among cultures and races here in the Valley.

As a South Asian writer and director, Sindher said the topic resonated with her.

“ZONE came out of a reflection of myself as a younger kid,” said Sindher.

“What does that look like for young kids who are growing up in the world with big dreams and who are not having the tools to make that happen?” she added.

Sindher was born and raised in Selma, but her career has since taken her to Los Angeles. She worked for the Directors Guild of America for ten years before being selected for a directing fellowship run by prominent television director and producer Ryan Murphy. She worked on his Netflix series “Ratched.”

She said time and experience outside of her home community morphed into an eagerness to come home and make the biggest impact where it all started.

It just so happened she had a great friend back home that shared her heart for change in the culture of their community.

“I always come back and I’m like, ‘Corey, how can we make this part better? How can we elevate this?,” said Sindher, “‘How can I give back to the community I never had?’”

Jackson is the owner and founder of ScrubCan, which started as a garbage bin cleaning company in Fresno that has since grown to solar panel power washing, residential power washing, fleet washing, janitorial services and disinfecting.

The business he started on his own in 2014 is now fulfilling multi-year contracts for public agencies including the City of Fresno. That has enabled Jackson to find new ways to support the community.

Now how does the owner of a cleaning business and a filmmaker not only make a difference, but do it together?

By having the same mentality, willingness, and simple desire to do something, they said.

“It’s really rare to find people who put their thoughts into action plans,” said Sindher.

Jackson said he is is just happy to support Sindher’s passion for storytelling.

“I like to fly under the radar,” he said.

It was never in Jackson’s plans to be an executive producer, but he explained that he never really had a set plan that he followed.

“As I went through life, I didn’t attack it as this is where I want to be,” Jackson said. “This is where I’m at. It just happened organically.”

His business, and now his experience of being an executive producer on a few of Sindher’s films, just came out of a pure place of wanting to help —definitely in ways he never could have imagined.

“All I’ve known is work,” Jackson said about being raised in a single parent home with his siblings. “Maybe not having too much means the entrepreneurial spirit sparked in.”

That spirit, combined with the vision to tell even the most difficult stories, is what led to the ZONE.

This won’t be the last time they partner on a project. Sindher is also premiering “Flight 182,” a documentary about the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 by Canadian Sikh terrorists that killed all 329 people on board. The events are told from the perspective of a family.