DESCRIPTION/
LALEE'S KIN: THE LEGACY OF COTTON profiles LaLee Wallace, the 62-year-old matriarch of an extended family struggling to overcome poverty, illiteracy and a background of sharecropping in Mississippi's rural Tallahatchie County. Reggie Barnes is the new school superintendent who is trying to keep the low-scoring school district from being taken over by the state. Veteran documentarians Susan Froemke and Albert Maysles ("Salesman") use keen observation to show how two people armed with hope try to make life better for those around them against overwhelming odds.

BIOGRAPHY/
Four-time Emmy Award-winner Susan Froemke, a principal of Maysles Films Inc. has long been an advocate of direct cinema, the riveting minimal-intervention approach to filmmaking which captures life as it unfolds. After studying English Literature at the University of Florida, she went to work for a New York public education network and then joined Maysles Films Inc. She now has seventeen non-fiction films to her credit and several of her films are televised worldwide, gaining international recognition and winning many awards. Her credits range from the classic GREY GARDENS (1976) to recent film LETTING GO: A HOSPIC JOURNEY.

Academy-award nominated filmmaker Deborah Dickson attended NYU Film School, shortly after which she joined Maysles Films Inc. She has co-directed many award-winning films that have been shown at major film festivals such as Sundance and Berlin. Many more have been broadcast on PBS and HBO. Her film, ABORTION: DESPERATE CHOICES (1992) captured an Emmy for Best Picture and the Dupont award for Journalism and acclaimed film FRANCES STELOFF: MEMOIRS OF A BOOKSELLER, was nominated for an Academy award.


CONTACT/
Xan Parker
Maysles Films
250 W 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
E-mail: xparker@mayslesfilms.com