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DAWN PORTER JOINS THE PRODUCERS' LAB!

The Firelight Media's Producers' Lab has a new addition: Dawn Porter for her film Spies of Mississippi. Dawn was also recently selected by Realscreen as a "Doc Hot Shot" for 2012. She was is one of 15 emerging directors that represent the future of feature-length non-fiction filmmaking. Check out the winners here. Congrats Dawn!

Spies of Mississippi tells the story of a secret state spy agency formed by the state of Mississippi to preserve segregation and maintain white supremacy during the 1950s and ‘60s. The Sovereignty Commission was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi and handpicked board of 12 of the most powerful men in the state. The Commission’s purpose was to preserve segregation at any cost. It was granted broad powers to investigate private citizens and organizations, to keep secret files, to make arrests and even to compel testimony. To do this, they employed a network of investigators and informants to infiltrate civil rights organizations and undercut their efforts. Ultimately, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission spied on tens of thousands of Americans and collected over 160,000 pages of files.

Dawn is an award-winning producer/director whose most recent Documentary project, Gideon’s Army, won the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award, as well as a generous grant by the Ford Foundation, The Tribeca Film Institute, The Sundance Film Institute and Chicken & Egg Pictures. Gideon's Army will be broadcast on HBO documentary films.

Dawn is an alum of ABC News and A&E Networks. Her company, Trilogy Films, has produced a documentary about celebrity Chef Alexandra Guarnaschelli for the Cooking Channel. Dawn is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Georgetown University Law Center.

Check out her full profile here: http://firelightmedia.tv/2011/01/dawn-porter/

photo: Dawn Porter