DECLARATIONS: ESSAYS ON AMERICAN IDEALS

Program One: LIBERTY: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Biographical Information

Drawing the Line

Essayist Charles J. Sykes teaches journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is also the host of a morning call-in radio show. Among his published works are A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character and Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education.

Producer David K. Liu won an Emmy in 1983 for Big Bird in China, a 90-minute special for NBC. His experience includes work for ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. He was line-producer for A&E's live coverage of Paris Live, which was nominated for an ACE award in 1989.


Disturbing the Peace

Essayist James Bernard is senior editor of The Source, a monthly magazine dedicated to hip-hop music, culture and politics. A native of Nashville, he is a graduate of Brown University and earned a law degree from Harvard.

Producer Akili Buchanan produced and directed the documentary Rap City Rhapsody (1990) for KQED-San Francisco, which won an Emmy Award for best direction, and an Emmy nomination for outstanding achievement. Broadcast on PBS in 1991, it also won a CINE Golden Eagle, a Silver Award from the Prix Futura-Berlin and the Prized Pieces Award from the National Black Programming Consortium.


Inquisition

Essayist Salman Rushdie once described himself as "an arguer with the world." England recently honored him with a special silver anniversary Booker Award, citing his 1981 novel Midnight's Children as England's best in 25 years. In 1989, Satanic Verses was on the New York Times best-seller list for 24 weeks. Rushdie's other writings include Imaginary Homelands, a 1991 collection of editorials, essays, book reviews and lectures; a children's book, Haroun and the Sea of Stories; and a book about the Wizard of Oz. Another novel is forthcoming.

Producer Udi Eichler, a founding partner of one of Britain's largest production companies, has been responsible for a wide variety of TV productions, ranging from high-brow talk shows to documentary series, such as MADNESS, shown by PBS in 1992. Eichler was born in Austria in 1942 and fled to England as a teenager. This is Eichler's and Rushdie's fourth collaboration for television.


Words that Wound

Essayist Mari J. Matsuda is a leader of the "Critical Race Theory" school of thought, which touched off the so-called "political correctness movement" in the 1980s. A proponent of laws and codes to punish racial/derogatory speech directed toward minorities and women, she asserts that the right of people to live harmoniously supersedes any individual's right to expression. She is a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University.

Co-producer Orlando Bagwell produced and directed two programs in the internationally acclaimed Eyes On The Prize, -- Mississippi -- Is This America? and Ain't Scared of Your Jails, produced by Blackside Inc., where he is executive vice-president and director of documentary production. Other credits in his 20-year career are Roots of Resistance: A Story of the Underground Railroad and two Frontline programs, Racism 101 and Running with Jesse. He was supervising producer of The Great Depression series, producer/director of Malcolm X: Make It Plain (both at Blackside), and producer/director of the Civil Rights Video Wall at the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance, for ROJA Productions, of which he is founder and president.

Co-producer Leslie Farrell is currently producing and directing the fifth show for a new PBS series titled America's War On Poverty, produced by Blackside, Inc. Her work previous to this essay includes Associate Producer of the first two films of the critically acclaimed The Great Depression series also produced by Blackside, Inc. She was also the Associate Producer for the multi-award winning Absolutely Positive. Ms. Farrell holds a Master's degree in Broadcast Communication Arts.


To Be At Liberty

Essayist John Perry Barlow, retired cattle rancher, is a lyricist for the Grateful Dead and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which some consider the ACLU of the computer world.

Producer Theo Kamecke entered filmmaking as an editor for Francis Thompson's multi-screen film for the 1964 New York World's Fair. To Be Alive! became the hit of the Fair and won an Academy Award. Kamecke has since written, directed, and shot many award-winning films, mostly documentaries. Moonwalk One, a feature-length documentary in epic style, was broadcast world-wide and was given a special award at Cannes. During the 1980s, Kamecke turned to sculpture, creating monumental works with elaborate surfaces of electronic circuitry. This Declarations essay is his first venture back into creative filmmaking.


Program One: LIBERTY: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
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