RACE - The Power of an Illusion
PRODUCTION TEAM

Series Creator and Executive Producer

Larry Adelman is co-director of California Newsreel, the country's oldest non-profit documentary production and distribution center. He oversees Newsreel’s productions and has helped develop dozens of Newsreel releases. Adelman served as writing and editorial consultant for many programs including Marlon Riggs’ Black Is…Black Ain’t and Color Adjustment. The PBS broadcasts of film he produced or co-produced, including Controlling Interest; The Business of America…; Collision Course; and The Road to Brown, have been singled out by Bill Moyers, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and historian John Hope Franklin, among others for spotlighting and bringing clarity to big questions. Adelman was also co-founder of the annual Schmio Awards for Dubious Advertising Achievements.

Series Narrator

CCH Pounder is a veteran performer with numerous film, television and theater credits to her name. Born in Guyana, she currently stars as Detective Claudette Wyms in FX's acclaimed series The Shield. Other television appearances include Emmy-nominated roles in ER and The X-Files, and memorable performances in The West Wing, The Practice, LA Law, and HBO's Disappearing Acts Boycott, and the recent Unchained Memories. Her television and cable film credits include Go Tell It On The Mountain (her breakthrough role, opposite Paul Winfield and Ossie Davis) and Booker for PBS. Pounder has also appeared in almost 20 feature films, including Bagdad Café, End of Days and Face/Off and she received a Grammy Award nomination for her spoken word album Grow Old With Me: The Best Is Yet to Come.

Producer, Episode One: The Difference Between Us

Christine Herbes-Sommers has an unusually diverse production background, having made documentaries and dramatic films and managed extended science and history series. For eight years she’s been senior producer and project director of WGBH's educational programming. She recently produced A Biography of America, a 26-part survey course, and she was producer/writer of the 8-part Annenberg series on genetics, The Secret of Life. Her earlier national broadcast credits include the Dupont- and Emmy-winning Joan Robinson: One Woman’s Story (1980); the pilot for In Search of Love with Leo Buscaglia (1985); Lights Breaking (1985) about the ethics of genetic engineering; and biographies of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and philosopher Bishop George Berkeley (Emmy nomination).

Producer, Episode Two: The Story We Tell

Tracy Heather Strain is a producer, director and writer of documentaries and educational videos, including two films for Blackside’s Peabody Award-winning series, I’ll Make Me A World: A Century Of African-American Arts. Her other production credits include The Great Depression, America’s War On Poverty and Discover: The World Of Science as well as Adrift, an independent film she produced with Tom Curran. Strain is currently developing Sweet Dreams: The Donut Movie, an exploration of the American Dream.

Producer, Episode Three: The House We Live In

Llewellyn M. Smith served as Story Editor for PBS' American Experience from 1987 to 1995, where he helped originate, develop and acquire more than 70 programs. From 1995 to 1997, he was Project Director for the Peabody and Emmy award-winning series Africans in America and producer of the final episode, Judgment Day. Mr. Smith has also produced episodes of such PBS series as Eyes On The Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1985), From Jumpstreet, A Story Of Black Music (1980), and Jazz: An American Classic (1979). Smith was Senior Producer for Eye on Education, a WGBH-Boston Globe multimedia look at state education reform, and is currently senior producer for the forthcoming American Experience series, Reconstruction.

Field Producer

Natatcha Estébanez co-wrote The Blue Diner, an acclaimed feature-length drama. She recently produced and directed 12 short films for PBS’s Favorite Poem Project, four films for The Discovery Channel, and an episode of Breakthrough, the six-part PBS series profiling multicultural scientists. Estebanez was Series Producer for WGBH's La Plaza where she produced and directed over 35 documentaries, cultural programs and music specials for local and national broadcast, including En Clave! with host Ruben Blades and Paco de Lucia: Soul of Flamenco.

Series Co-Producer and Web Site Producer

Jean Cheng has worked as associate producer on several public television documentaries including Loni Ding's three-part series, Ancestors in the Americas, and most recently, Born in the U.S.A., an ITVS-funded production about childbirth. She also coordinated broadcast outreach for the Academy Award-nominated and Peabody-winning Regret to Inform (including creation of the broadcast Web site and online memorial Letters from the Heart) and for the Academy Award-winning Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. Cheng is an award-winning filmmaker in her own right, whose works have screened in the U.S. and Asia.

 

Copyright (c) California Newsreel, 2003
RACE - The Power of an Illusion
A three-part documentary series from California Newsreel
For more information or video purchase: www.newsreel.org or 1-877-811-7495
Visit the companion web site at www.racepowerofanillusion.org