About the Director
Anne Lewis, Producer/Director, Editor, Writer
Anne Lewis is an independent documentarian whose work reveals working class people fighting for social change. She produced, directed, and edited: To Save the Land and People (SXSW); Justice in the Coalfields (INTERCOM gold plaque, ITVS); On Our Own Land (duPont-Columbia award); Chemical Valley (POV); Belinda (CINE Golden Eagle); and Fast Food Women (Judges’ Choice, London Film Festival, POV). Her latest film (co-produced with Mimi Pickering) Anne Braden: Southern Patriot was described by Joan Baez as “a gem of a film… freedom fighters carve a path for one of the most effective nonviolent movements for social change the world has ever seen.” Howard Zinn wrote of Morristown: in the air and sun (2006), “Brings the complex issue of globalization down to its human level — where workers speak from the heart.” Anne was Associate Director/Assistant Camera for Harlan County, USA. She teaches film editing at the University of Texas at Austin, is recipient of a 2010 United States Artists award, and a Rockefeller Intercultural Media Arts Fellowship. For a more complete resume including reviews of films, please see: www.annelewis.org
About the Crew
Lee Daniel, Director of Photography
Involved in this project since its inception, Lee Daniel’s narrative photography includes Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Suburbia, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Fast Food Nation, and Boyhood. He has been the DP on feature documentaries including The Hunt for Pancho Villa, Be Here to Love Me, The Unforeseen, and You’re Gonna Miss Me: The Roky Erickson Story. This year Lee was cinematographer on two films in the feature documentary competition at SXSW – The Seer by Laura Dunn and Honky Tonk Heaven by Brenda Greene Mitchell. Lee Daniel won the SXSW Special Jury Award for Cinematography for The Seer.
Laura Varela, Associate Producer, Sound (San Antonio)
Laura Varela is a San Antonio documentary filmmaker and media artist whose work focuses on cultural preservation and social justice in the Chicano community. Her feature documentary As Long as I Remember: American Veteranos about the experience of Latino Vietnam veterans is an American Public Television offering. In March 2009 she created the site-specific public art installation “Enlight-Tents” at the Alamo with German artist Vaago Weiland. She is a fellow of the 2006 CPB/PBS Producers Academy, the 2006 NALAC Leadership Institute, and the 2003 NALIP/UCLA Latino Producers Academy. She attended the Sundance Filmmaker’s lab in 1997.
Judy Graves, Ron Day, and Eric Larson, Organizers (Nacogdoches)
Judy Graves is CWA District 6 Organizing Director. At the time of the Nacogdoches interviews, she was a lead organizer with the Texas State Employees Union, CWA 6186. Ron Day is the current lead organizer with the Texas State Employees Union, CWA 6186. Nacogdoches is part of his territory. Eric Larson is the editor of “Jobs with Justice, 25 Years, 25 Voices” and a scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
Jacob (Ruby) Branson, Camera and Editing Assistant
Ruby Branson is completing a degree in the School of Social Work at UT Austin. They have a background in union activism and assisted Lee Daniel and Anne Lewis with camera, editing, and writing.
Tom Hammond, Sound Design and Mix
Scanner Darkly, When I Rise, Trash Dance, Everybody Wants Some
Amparo Garcia-Crow, Voice Over Actress
Austin based Latina writer, director, and actress (The Living Room: Storytime for Grown-ups, Between Misery and the Sun: The South Texas Plays.
Dominique Preyer, Music Supervisor
San Antonio based music supervisor for more than 85 films for directors including Joel Schumacher, Terrance Malick, Rawson Marshall Thurber, and Joshua Marston.
Humanities advisors (Humanities Texas grant)
Michael Honey, Guggenheim fellow who teaches southern, civil rights, and labor history at the University of Washington-Takoma.
Emily Jones (deceased) the reason for this film and its inspiration, labor and education activist.
Martha Norkunas, Professor of History, Middle Tennessee State University interested in the construction of race, class, and gender in life history narratives and public historian.
Emilio Zamora, Professor of History, UT-Austin (The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas).
Ruthe Winegarten (deceased) “the most significant advocate of Texas women’s history”
Additional photography by Juan Pablo Gonzales, Nancy Schiesari, Patrick Bresnan, Jacob Branson, Rene Renteria, Julia Halperin. Sound by Laura Varela (San Antonio), Anne Lewis (Austin, Nacogdoches). Additional sound by Heather Courtney (Nacogdoches).