Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes was a pioneer aviator and a founder of the first movie stunt pilots' union. In 1930, she broke Amelia Earhart's air speed record. Barnes raced in the Women's Air Derby and was a member of the Ninety-Nines. In later years, she was known as the owner of the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a bar and restaurant in the Mojave Desert, Southern California, catering to the legendary test pilots and aviators who worked nearby.
The Happy Bottom Riding Club (1935–1953), was a dude ranch, restaurant, and hotel operated by aviator Pancho Barnes near Edwards Air Force Base in the Antelope Valley of California's Mojave Desert. Barnes and the club were both featured in Tom Wolfe's 1979 book, The Right Stuff, and the 1983 film adaptation.
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story is an American documentary about Megumi Yokota, a Japanese student who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977.
Planet Earth is a 2006 British television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC and also the first to be filmed in high definition. The series received multiple awards, including four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and an award from the Royal Television Society.
Nick T. Spark is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. Films he has written, directed or produced include Regulus: The First Nuclear Missile Submarines (2001) the Emmy award-winning The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club (2009) and Right Footed (2015). In addition to being a contributing editor to Wings and Airpower magazines, his articles have appeared in the Annals of Improbable Research, Naval History, the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society, and Proceedings. People he has interviewed include President Gerald Ford, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State Colin Powell, disability activist Jessica Cox and numerous test pilots including Charles "Chuck" Yeager. In 2007 Spark was interviewed on National Public Radio, concerning an article he wrote about the USS Panay incident, and he appeared on PBS' History Detectives in 2011 as an expert on the Navy's World War II drone, the TDR-1.
Raymond De Felitta is an American independent film director, screenwriter and musician.
Carla Garapedian is a filmmaker, director, writer and broadcaster. She directed Children of the Secret State about North Korea and was an anchor for BBC World News. After leaving BBC World, she directed Dying for the President" about Chechnya, Lifting the Veil, about women in Afghanistan, Iran Undercover and My Friend the Mercenary about the coup in Equatorial Guinea. Her feature, Screamers, was theatrically released in the U.S. in December 2006 and early 2007, and was on Newsweek's pick of non-fiction films for 2006/7. The Independent called it "powerful" and Larry King for CNN described it as "a brilliant film. Everyone should see it." The New York Times deemed it "invigorating and articulate," while the Los Angeles Times called it "eye-opening." "Carla Garapedian is a screamer, too," said the Washington Post.
Lauren Kessler is an American author, and immersion journalist who specializes in narrative nonfiction. She teaches storytelling for social change at the University of Washington and for the Forum of Journalism and Media in Vienna.
Seven different versions of Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner have been shown, either to test audiences or theatrically. The best known versions are the Workprint, the US Theatrical Cut, the International Cut, the Director's Cut and the Final Cut. These five versions are included in both the 2007 five-disc Ultimate Collectors Edition and 2012 30th-Anniversary Collector's Edition releases.
A Walk to Beautiful is a 2007 American documentary film, executive produced by Steven M. Engel and Helen Diana ("Heidi") Reavis, produced and distributed by Engel Entertainment, about women who suffer from childbirth injuries in Ethiopia. In 2007, it premiered in film festivals and was chosen for the International Documentary Association Best Feature Documentary Film of the Year award. The following year, the film opened in theaters in the United States in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. A 52-minute version of A Walk to Beautiful that premiered on NOVA on PBS on May 13, 2008, won the 2009 Emmy Award in the Outstanding Informational Programming category on September 21, 2009, at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony on September 21, 2009, at Rose Hall, Lincoln Center in New York City.
Young@Heart is a 2007 British documentary film directed by Stephen Walker. It is about Young@Heart, a New England chorus of senior citizens that sings contemporary and classic rock and pop songs, and their rehearsals for a new show.
Joel P. Engardio is a local news columnist in San Francisco. He is a journalist, documentary filmmaker and civil liberties advocate. Engardio served as a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. Engardio's PBS documentary Knocking won the jury award for Best Documentary at the USA Film Festival. At the American Civil Liberties Union, Engardio developed a new plaintiff-finding process. He used journalism methods to determine which plaintiffs would best represent court cases brought by the ACLU involving LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, voters, free speech rights and upholding the rule of law. Engardio found plaintiffs with the strongest legal cases to win in the court of law. Then he looked for plaintiffs with the most compelling narratives — the stories that could also win over the court of public opinion. Engardio also created the first online video department for the national ACLU. He produced advocacy videos based upon plaintiffs he found for cases. The videos were used for public education, media outreach, and fundraising. Engardio’s role at the ACLU was featured in the book The Genome Defense by Jorge L. Contreras, which chronicled how the ACLU won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the government’s ability to issue patents for human genes.
kids + money, a 2008 cinéma vérité documentary film, was directed by photographer/filmmaker Lauren Greenfield and produced by Evergreen Pictures. The 32 minute film includes interviews with Los Angeles teenagers on the subject of money and how it affects their lives. HBO licensed North American broadcast rights to kids + money, and the film has been distributed to major broadcasters and cable networks internationally. An educational DVD is being distributed by Bullfrog Films.
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement is a 2009 American documentary film directed and produced by Susan Muska and Gréta Ólafsdóttir for their company Bless Bless Productions, in association with Sundance Channel. The film tells the story of the long-term lesbian relationship between Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, including their respective childhoods, their meeting in 1963, their lives and careers in New York City, Thea's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and Edie's care for her partner, and their wedding in Toronto, Canada, in May 2007, because gay marriage was not then legal in their home state of New York.
Pancho Barnes is a 1988 American made-for-television biographical film about the pioneering female aviator, starring Valerie Bertinelli, Ted Wass, James Stephens and Cynthia Harris. The film was directed by Richard T. Heffron and premiered on CBS on October 25, 1988.
Alexis Krasilovsky is an American filmmaker, writer and professor. Krasilovsky's first film, End of the Art World documented artists including Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Krasilovsky moved from New York to Los Angeles in the 1970s to pursue her passion for filmmaking, writing and directing films through her company, Rafael Film. She is the writer and director of the global documentary features, Women Behind the Camera and Let Them Eat Cake.
Marion "Muffie" Meyer is an American director, whose productions include documentaries, theatrical features, television series and children’s films. Films that she directed are the recipients of two Emmy Awards, CINE Golden Eagles, the Japan Prize, Christopher Awards, the Freddie Award, the Columbia-DuPont, and the Peabody Awards. Her work has been selected for festivals in Japan, Greece, London, Edinburgh, Cannes, Toronto, Chicago and New York, and she has been twice nominated by the Directors Guild of America.
Clayton "Clay" Westervelt is a film director, producer, and cinematographer based in Los Angeles, California. He is the founder of Martini Crew Booking and Imaginaut Entertainment.
Roberta Grossman is an American filmmaker. Her documentaries range from social justice inquiries to historical subjects with a focus on Jewish history.
Dydia DeLyser is a cultural-historical geographer, writer and researcher based in Los Angeles, California. An expert on the cultural impact of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona and the history of neon signage, DeLyser is an associate professor at California State University, Fullerton in the Department of Geography & the Environment.
