APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People
Introduced by the filmmakers Jamie Ross and Ross Spears
Filmmakers
Project Director/Writer — Ross Spears
See Also: Complete Bio
Ross Spears is considered one of the most accomplished documentary filmmakers now working in the United States and has won such prestigious awards as a Lyndhurst Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Tennessee Governor's Awards in both the Arts and Humanities, and --as you just heard -- an Academy Award Nomination for Best Feature Documentary. William Sloan of the Museum of Modern Art wrote that "Spears has made a lasting and significant contribution to American film. All of his works possess a rare vigor and discipline that is unique."
Co-Producer/Writer — Jamie Ross
See Also: Complete Bio
Jamie Ross has been working with the James Agee Film Project for over twenty-five years as an editor, director, researcher, writer and producer. She was the main researcher and writer for Long Shadows, a film on the legacy of the American Civil War. More recently she has served on the curatorial board for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Her roots in the region go back thousands of years through her Catawba and Miami ancestors and she has brought her passion for the region as well as her many years experience as a researcher and filmmaker to the making of APPALACHIA. The result is as one viewer put it: "pure poetry."
Funded by a major grant from
the National Science Foundation
Additional funding provided by
the Arthur Vining Davis Foundatons
National Endowment for the Humanities
Southern Humanities Media Fund
Cherokee
Preservation Foundation
Appalachian
Regional Commission
Tennessee Arts Commission
further funding by the Humanites Councils of
Tennessee
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
West Virginia
Pennsylvania.
