Southern Belle

Kathy Conkwright is co-founder of MakeWright Films, established in 2007. Before becoming an independent producer, Conkwright worked as a staff producer for Nashville Public Television (NPT) and spent nine years in New York working in a variety of roles with Bill Moyers and Frontline at PBS, Turning Point at ABC, and Dateline at NBC. She also served as the senior associate producer on an independent-feature length documentary, Well Founded Fear, which premiered at Sundance and broadcast on the PBS series P.O.V. Winner of multiple Emmy, Gracie, and NETA Awards her credits include nationally and locally broadcast films seen on topics as diverse as political and social history, music, civil and human rights, political asylum, public education, and a federal inmate’s suspicious death, which lead to a U.S. Justice Department investigation. Conkwright has also taught documentary production classes at Vanderbilt and Fisk University and served on two local film boards for a decade. She is presently getting her MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College in New York City.

Mary Makley is co-founder of MakeWright Films, established in 2007. Her locally and nationally broadcast programs have won multiple Emmy, Gracie and NETA awards. She has been an independent producer and freelance editor for nine years. Clients include Nashville Public Television, Country Music Television, and Time Life Music. She co-produced a PBS documentary Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, & the Presidency. She co-wrote and edited The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken, which was acquired by the flagship PBS series, American Experience. Current projects include the first in a series of seven documentaries on the state of children’s health in Nashville, Tennesssee.