Connection October

Page 43

Murray Bishoff and his wife, Julie, talk with Leo Eaton, executive producer of the documentary at the film’s premier.

Making the cut

Homeland documentary explores Monett’s cultural diversity Story by Murray Bishoff Photos courtesy of the Nine Network

Everybody should be in a documentary movie. I have been in two. The latest was created by the Nine Network of Public Media, the St. Louis public TV station. “Homeland: Immigration in America” was unveiled in July and aired nationally as a threepart series. Public television is a little different than “The Real Housewives.” After all, everyone

OCTOBER 2012

has a bad day, and it’s easy to capture one for broadcast if you watch long enough. If you have to have your story told, public television is the place to do it. Documentaries take a long time to complete. “Homeland” took two and a half years to finish. There were scenes in the final cut that I had forgotten by the time the film was finished. The biggest factor about

any documentary is whose story are they telling: is it yours? Or do they have another story to tell and want to use you to tell it? You never really know. My latest foray into documentary films began with my phone ringing at The Monett Times. It was then that I had my first conversation with Anne Copeland Davis, an associate producer on what

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