The Filmmakers

From filmmakers Michael Chandler and Sheila Canavan:

The social issues in this film—the loss of farmland to development and the loss of farming as a way of life—are not front and center. Yet audiences are telling us that it makes for an even more powerful message, because they become invested in our characters' emotional lives. We hope that the film will make people think twice, especially people who sit on city councils and zoning boards, or who go to town meetings. We’d like to make them speak up in defense of farming as a public good, fly in the face of market economics and make the success of developers a little less inevitable. Everyone wants the America of yesteryear, but they don’t realize that our ties to that past are growing tenuous as dwindling open spaces and farmland get paved over and developed.

Above all, our characters are what make this film special; we want people to sit back and enjoy them and their stories.

Their three favorite films:

It's too hard to list three, so here are our favorite films in two categories.
For foreign: Children of Paradise, Loves of a Blonde and Brutti Sporchi e Cattivi
For domestic: Once Upon a Time in America, Unforgiven and The Incredibles

Their advice for aspiring filmmakers:

Don't take no for an answer. And eat your spinach. You're going to need all your strength.

Their most inspirational food for making independent film:

Robin's raspberry pie!

Bios

Michael Chandler
Producer/Director

Michael Chandler is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, working in non-fiction and fiction film. Chandler's film Forgotten Fires, on the burning by Ku Klux Klansmen of black churches in South Carolina, aired on over 250 PBS stations. It has won critical acclaim and numerous awards, including a Golden Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival, a Crystal Heart from the Heartland Film Festival and a Juror's Choice Award at the Charlotte Film Festival. Bill Moyers said, "If we wanted a real dialog about race in America, we'd start with this film." Chandler has also produced and directed documentaries for the PBS series Frontline. Blackout, a co-production with The New York Times, looked at the roots and repercussions of the California energy crisis and was the first media program to expose Enron's financial manipulation of energy markets. The Future of War, an examination of the U.S. Army's ability to meet emerging global military threats, won a Silver Plaque for investigative reporting from the Chicago International Television Competition. Secrets of the SAT dealt with the impact of standardized testing in college admissions and won First Prize in Broadcast Journalism from the Education Writer's Association. Chandler wrote and edited the documentary feature Freedom on My Mind, which chronicled the voting rights struggle in Mississippi during the sixties. The film earned an Academy Award nomination and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He also wrote and edited the Academy Award-nominated Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey, the Emmy Award-winning Yosemite: The Fate of Heaven and ABC's Can't It Be Anyone Else?, for which he received the Christopher Humanitarian Award. Chandler has also edited feature films, including Never Cry Wolf, Mishima and Amadeus, for which he was Academy Award-nominated.

Sheila Canavan
Producer

Sheila Canavan is a nationally known attorney in consumer law and predatory lending fraud, specializing in financial abuse of the elderly. She has just completed a three-year term on the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council, which advises the Board on its responsibilities under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. Her film credits include Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey and Yosemite, The Fate of Heaven.

Blake Leyh
Composer

Blake Leyh is a composer, sound designer and music supervisor living in New York City. He has composed scores for more than a dozen feature films, including B-movie schlock classic American Cyborg, the challenging independent drama Star Time and the award-winning documentary Twist Of Faith. In 1996 he composed the score for the Sundance Jury Prize-winning documentary SICK: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, which marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration with filmmaker Kirby Dick. In 2001, Blake became the music supervisor on HBO's dramatic series The Wire, also composing the theme music for the show.

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