Productions Currently In Process

The Last Negroes at Harvard…a documentary that examines how an early version of what would become known as “affirmative action” played out in the lives of the nineteen African American men and women who were admitted to Harvard College in 1959. I was one of them. This documentary is about what happened to us on the path to Harvard, at Harvard, and after Harvard. We were the largest number of Blacks admitted in the College’s 300-year history.

When we entered Harvard, we were called “Negroes” but during our years there, we began to identify ourselves in our own terms. We invited Malcolm X to campus and heard him speak about blackness. Some of us took part in the Civil Rights Movement.  We reached out to our African classmates and started the African and Afro-American Student Association, the first of its kind at Harvard. Not all of us were activists; some of us just studied hard.  We may have started as Negroes, but we graduated as Blacks or Afro-Americans. Harvard changed us, and we changed Harvard.

Now in our mid-sixties, we have lived through times of profound social, cultural, and political change. We have survived being Black in America, and we have stories to tell.

The Independent Production Fund, a 501(c)3 is fiscal sponsor for the project. Funds for production of a script treatment and edited trailer for this documentary have been provided by the Mass Humanities Foundation, the Yip Harburg Foundation, the Rita & Henry Kaplan Foundation and private donors.

This program is funded in part by the Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Mise en Place... a documentary about a college culinary team.  Cooking is at the center of the action, but the primary focus is on teaching and education. It will be a story about young people maturing, learning, competing, and striving for excellence. SUNY Delhi, a small public college nestled in upstate New York’s picturesque Catskill Mountains, is recognized as having one of the best Culinary Arts Programs in the nation.   For the last ten years, Delhi student teams have been cooking, competing…and winning!

The documentary will follow the five-member team during the coming school year. Our cameras will be  “flies on the wall” as viewers follow the students from try-outs in September, through the busy school year to final competitions in the spring.  Viewers will get an in-depth

look into a fascinating world that many people don’t know about.  But, more importantly, the documentary will be about the students—young men and women who come from ordinary rural and urban backgrounds, typically from working-class or struggling families, and who, for the most part, were not able to attend elite, expensive colleges. Instead, they are preparing for the demanding and competitive world of high cuisine. According to team coach, Chef Tom Recinella, “the students continually perform at a level that goes well beyond their years,” and their preparation for competition is, in important ways, preparation for life.

The MARK Project, a 501(c)3 is fiscal sponsor for the project. Funds for production of this documentary have been provided by the A. Lindsay & Olive B. O'Connor Foundation, Inc, the Roxbury Arts Group, and private donors.