Ellen Spiro

Director/ Cinematographer, TROOP 1500

"Spiro creates non-fiction works that are revealing and politically provocative, visually inventive, and sometimes even visionary -- without a trace of cynicism."

- Scott MacDonald, from "Pioneering Spirit", Public Culture, Duke University Press

For almost two decades Ellen Spiro has created award-winning and imaginative documentaries, including Diana's Hair Ego, Greetings From Out Here, Roam Sweet Home, Atomic Ed & the Black Hole and, now, TROOP 15OO.

Spiro's works have pushed the boundaries of the documentary form, thriving both in the art world and in television and film festival venues. Her works are housed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in the Peabody Collection of the Museum of Television and Radio. Spiro is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and Jerome Foundation Fellowship. She is a two-time Rockefeller Fellowship recipient. Spiro's films have been broadcast on television worldwide on PBS, HBO, BBC, CBC (Canada) and NHK (Japan).

The Boston Globe called Spiro's first documentary, Diana's Hair Ego, a "terrific portrait of a remarkable woman" and it won the Motion Picture Society's Documentary Achievement Award. Greetings From Out Here was invited to the Sundance Film Festival and won first prize in the USA Film Festival. Roam Sweet Home, which innovatively challenged stereotypes about aging, was presented with the National Media Owl Award by Gene Siskel. Atomic Ed & the Black Hole won the Best Documentary Short at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Troop 1500 is another example in a long history of directing innovative documentaries for Ellen Spiro, ones that require an intimate interpersonal involvement over a long period of time. Spiro is well known for making inventive films with contemporary social relevance. Troop 1500 is Spiro's third ITVS-funded project. In its first year of operation, ITVS funded Greetings From Out Here, and later, Roam Sweet Home.

For over five years, Director Ellen Spiro worked with the girls of Troop 1500, the "prison troop," as both mentor and volunteer. Her first year with the troop was spent training the girls in cinematography, sound and editing, and then she began documentation of her own.

Spiro is currently Associate Professor of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas in Austin.

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Karen Bernstein

Producer/Sound Recordist, TROOP 1500

Noted for her ability to produce films on celebrities and artists as well as direct cinema approaches to human interest and social issue documentaries, Bernstein has spent the past 20 years working for and with some of the most prestigious producer/ directors in the documentary field, including Susan Lacy (PBS American Masters), Charlotte Zwerin (PBS American Masters), Henry Hampton (Blackside) and Ellen Spiro (Mobilus Media).

She has most recently produced Troop 1500 with Ellen Spiro, which follows a unique Girl Scout troop, whose mothers are incarcerated in Texas. It has toured throughout the country through film festivals, won an audience award at SXSW in Texas, and will be broadcast next year on PBS's Independent Lens.

With support from the Hogg Foundation, Houston Endowment, and Meadows Foundation, Are The Kids Alright?, stories about children's mental health in Texas, was broadcast on PBS in June of 2004 and again in 2005.

In her role as a series producer for American Masters and producer of Ella Fitzgerald ­ Something To Live For (1999), Bernstein received a series Emmy award for Outstanding Non-fiction Series. She also won a Grammy award for producing Lou Reed ­ Rock and Roll Heart (1998). She recently served as producer of American Masters/Juilliard (2002) and American Masters/Clint Eastwood (2000). Her work has been screened at over 100 international film festivals including Sundance and Berlin. At American Masters she was responsible for pre-production, production and post-production on other feature-length biographies: Richard Avedon, Lena Horne. In addition she advised on over 20 biographical portraits, including those Rod Serling, Leonard Bernstein, Joseph Papp, Alfred Steiglitz.

Premium cable network credits include Ellen Spiro's documentary, Atomic Ed & The Black Hole for HBO's Cinemax- Reel Life and, The Wrestling Party, a short documentary for HBO. At the Sundance Channel, Karen Bernstein produced and directed a documentary portrait of the L.A. based filmmaker, Mike Mills, entitled Meet Mike Mills (2002), and a short profile of the filmmaker, Eugene Jarecki, for the premiere of Doc Day.

At the high definition, satellite broadcaster, Gallery HD, she has just finished documentaries about two Texas artists and groups, Julie Speed and the innovative gallery, Ballroom Marfa. Throughout 2003, she was the Producer for Evan Smith's Texas Monthly Talks, a television series out of KLRU in Austin. Her short film on Elizabeth Streb (PopACTION) , dancer and choreographer, was awarded a New York State Council on the Arts grant.

Bernstein has produced radio documentaries for NPR's This American Life, ("Mob Mentality", May, 2000), and for Connecticut Public Radio.

Current projects in development include In Good Faith, a history of the Girl Scout Movement, Brian/ Natalia and No Deposit, No Return with Ellen Spiro and Mobilus Media. In addition, she is co-producing two documentary projects with the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, Sandy McLeod, for Make Do Productions.

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