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Want to get involved? Have a Safety Town story to share?

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For nearly a century, children have learned the rules of the world inside miniature cities built just for them. Streets. Scaled-down buildings. Stoplights. Crosswalks. Pedal cars. And then the harder lessons: stranger danger, fire safety, digital safety, personal boundaries, poison prevention, and emergency services. The whole terrain of a child's vulnerability, made navigable before they ever have to face it alone. What began as a grassroots experiment in suburban Ohio became a global movement that spread to over 50 countries and quietly shaped the childhoods of millions.

The Safety Town Movie is a feature verité documentary about what these places hold, the generations they shaped, and the communities that keep them alive at a time of rapidly fraying civic bonds. The very history of Safety Town is an excavation of the hidden architecture of American safety culture, and the unseen systems that shaped modern childhood, civic trust, and public life. A finalist for the prestigious Rogovy Millar / Packan Documentary Fund, The Safety Town Movie is a film about small places that quietly hold enormous things.

A young boy in Safety Town, sitting in a pedal car. In the background, there is a traffic light, a colorful small building with windows, and greenery with trees.

Child in Safety Town fastening a seatbelt over yellow shirt and gray shorts.

Close-up of a person wearing a colorful sneaker and a brown glove, holding a skate wheel.

Street signs for Stop Street and Safety Street at an intersection with green foliage in the background.

Team

Writer/Director

A woman with blonde hair, glasses on her head, smiling and looking through a large camera lens on a tripod in a dark environment.

Close-up portrait of a woman with medium skin tone, long dark hair, gold earrings, smiling, wearing a red top with black lace details, against a black background.

Claudia Raschke

Stephanie Dawson

Director of Photography

Associate Producer

An elderly woman with curly hair and glasses sitting on an orange chair with wooden arms, wearing a green patterned shirt and white pants, smiling. There are two dogs, one large black and white dog standing next to her and a small light-colored dog partially visible on the left side of the image.

Close-up of a woman with curly hair wearing hoop earrings and a black top, smiling at the camera.

Rosalind Lichter

Nicole Sylvester

Casting & Community Liaison

Legal

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A middle-aged man wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and yellow tie, posing against a gray background.

Stephen Holmgren

Dr. Douglas Brinkley

Legal

Historical Advisor

A young man with light skin, reddish-brown hair, and a beard, wearing a navy sweater with blue text that says "TOO MUCH PERFECTION IS A MISTAKE," and a light blue collared shirt underneath, standing against a plain gray background.

A man smiling while operating a professional video camera, with colorful children's artwork and decorations in a classroom background.

Patrick Hamm

H Spencer Young

Producer

H Spencer Young, with over 30 years in filmmaking, has built a rich career as a writer, director, interdisciplinary artist, cinematographer, editor, producer, educator, and mentor, working on a wide range of global projects. His dedication to socially conscious filmmaking is underscored by his certifications in child education and his role as a Mandated Reporter, stemming from his experience as a filmmaking and visual art teaching artist for hundreds of children across New York City. Spencer, also a published author and exhibited artist, notably at Art Basel, brings a unique perspective to his work. His diverse portfolio, featuring commissioned films, documentaries, and music videos, has been recognized in publications like W Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Highlights include his global brand film for Hudson’s Bay Company, which told the origin stories of Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, feature documentary Swing State, praised for its success at the Cleveland International Film Festival, as well as creative films for fashion house Honor and artists like Joan as Police Woman and rapper and poet Mykki Blanco. Spencer edited and sound-designed Samuel in Space for artist Rashid Johnson, exhibited as part of Johnson’s retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Spencer’s diverse expertise makes him a compelling storyteller in both cinema and art.

Patrick Hamm is an award-winning documentary producer. His films include Dear Lara (2026; SBIFF), Who I Am Not (2023; SXSW, CPH:DOX; PBS:POV), This Rain Will Never Stop (2020; IDFA, True/False), and Freedom for the Wolf (2017; Slamdance, IDFA). He has also served as executive producer on projects such as Dark Secrets of a Trillion Dollar Island: Garenne (BBC/Arte), Copwatch (Tribeca), and the narrative feature The Man Who Was Thursday (Edinburgh IFF). Patrick’s projects have received support from major national film funds and international grants, including the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund, and the Doha Film Institute. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and EURODOC, and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University and a B.A. from Yale University. Patrick works across development, production, and story shaping. He serves as Co-Captain of Documentary Features Programming at Slamdance and is a member of the PGA, DPA, DAE, IQ, GIPA, and the Cinema for Peace Academy.

Claudia Raschke, ASC is an award-winning cinematographer celebrated for her signature blend of emotional depth and visual precision. Her work includes Boys State (Primetime Emmy winner), the Oscar-nominated RBG, Mad Hot Ballroom (#2 documentary at the U.S. box office, 2005), Oscar-shortlisted Julia, and Peabody Award-winning My Name Is Pauli Murray. She has lensed acclaimed documentaries and series for Nat Geo, Netflix, CNN, and Showtime. Her images have shaped some of the most iconic nonfiction films of the past two decades, bringing warmth, intimacy, and cinematic scale to stories about real people.

Stephen Holmgren is a New York and California–based entertainment attorney specializing in independent film from development through distribution. A former programmer and advisor at UnionDocs, he has served on juries for festivals including CPH:Pix, Oberhausen, and Riviera Maya. Holmgren frequently collaborates with arts organizations such as SFFilm, IFP, and Creative Capital to support emerging nonfiction filmmakers.

Stephanie Dawson is a New York-based producer whose credits include Down with the King (Cannes 2021 · Grand Prize Deauville), Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself (Hulu), and Holiday Rush (Netflix). She currently produces PBS’s Great Performances and co-founded Women Independent Producers. A leader in the “green set” movement, she advocates for sustainable practices across film and television production.

Nicole Sylvester Brooklyn-based filmmaker and casting director Nicole Sylvester has worked across film and television as a producer, coordinator, and director. Her credits span studio and independent projects, including Venom 2 (Sony Pictures), Power (Starz), and Harlem (Amazon Studios). A member of New York Women in Film & TV, Women Independent Producers, and Film Fatales, she brings deep experience connecting productions with local communities and talent.

Rosalind Lichter One of the top-rated attorneys in New York, Rosalind “Roz” Lichter is consistenly named a “Super Lawyer.” She specializes in entertainment law, executive employment law, and corporate transactions. She has served as legal counsel for several award-winning features and documentaries, and has provided corporate counsel for firms ranging from Fortune 500 companies to tech startups. In addition to her full-time practice, Ms. Lichter is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she teaches in the undergraduate film division. She also served as an adjunct professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City from 1991 through 2005, where she taught entertainment law. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, was a fellow of the National Endowment of the Humanities, and received her Juris Doctorate from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. Currently, Ms. Lichter is a member of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and is the former Chair of the Entertainment Law Committee. Ms. Lichter is a member of the Cardozo School of Law FAME Board, a Board Member of the Peter S. Reed Foundation, and was a Juror for the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019. Ms. Lichter also produced My Depression, the Up and Down and Up of It, written and directed by her late wife Elizabeth Swados, and starring the voices of Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, and Fred Armisen. It screened on HBO for 4 years and is now available on ITUNES and Amazon

Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, a CNN Presidential Historian, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He has received seven honorary doctorates in American Studies. He works in many capacities in the world of public history, including for boards, museums, colleges and historical societies. Six of his books were named New York Times “Notable Books of the Year” and seven became New York Times bestsellers. His The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, 2007, received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award. He was personally selected by Nancy Reagan to edit President Ronald Reagan’s presidential diaries (2011). His 2012 book Cronkite won Fordham University’s Ann M. Sperber Prize for outstanding biographies. His two-volume annotated The Nixon Tapes, 2016, won the Arthur S. Link – Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He received a Grammy Award in 2017 as co-producer of Presidential Suite: Eight Variations on Freedom (Best Jazz Ensemble). The New-York Historical Society selected Brinkley in 2017 as their official U.S. Presidential Historian. He is on the Board of Trustees at Brevard College and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. He is a member of the Century Association, Council of Foreign Relations and James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and three children.