New Orleans, LA, USA
$150 - $600 / Day
Katie Mathews is a filmmaker and cultural anthropologist based in New Orleans. She has experience in production management, directing, and editing, but her primary passion is creative producing documentary and hybrid films. Most recently, Katie directed and produced the POST COASTAL, a series of documentary shorts about coastal communities’ response to land loss in Louisiana, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and in partnership with the Smithsonian and Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently producing MOSSVILLE, a documentary feature currently in post production, that explores the psychological trauma of community displacement at the hands of the petrochemical industry, and is developing ROLEPLAY, feature documentary about performance and vulnerability. Prior to her work in film, Katie worked as an anthropologist and ethnographer at global design firm IDEO, where she led qualitative research, using individual stories to inspire new systems in education and the public sector. Katie holds a BA in Communications from Northwestern University and has completed continuing education work at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Additionally, Katie teaches Research Methods in Social Innovation at Tulane University, and is currently leading a research and documentary project around sexual assault with students on Tulane’s campus.
REFUGE is a portrait of Phan, a Cambodian fisherman who escaped the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields as a child to resettle along the coast in Buras, Louisiana. Today, Phan and his community are faced with the possibility of becoming refugees again, this time from coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and state restoration programs that struggle to engage with affected communities.
KEEPERS OF THE MOUND follows the families and scientists who work to protect and care for an ancient burial mound in Dulac, Louisiana. KEEPERS OF THE MOUNDS poses questions about how value is determined on places and communities in the fight to protect and preserve our coast. Directed & Produced by Katie Mathews, Commissioned by the Smithsonian & Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
The residents of Mossville, Louisiana have long prized self-sufficiency. African American families built the town from the ground up, and the land provided, until the petrochemical industry moved in. In this episode of Gravy, we tell the story of Mossville, its gardens and fisheries, and the uneasy relationship that’s evolved between residents and industry.
A centuries-old Black community is contaminated and uprooted by petrochemical plants. As the community comes to terms with the loss of their ancestral home, one man standing in the way of a plant’s expansion refuses to give up.
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