IT ONLY TOOK 50 YEARS! — GET YOUR COPY NOW!
50TH ANNIVERSARY RELEASE OF
AN AMERICAN FAMILY
After all these years, PBS and WNET have released, for the first time ever, a DVD box set of all 12 hours of the original AN AMERICAN FAMILY series broadcast in 1973. Also included in this release is the 2011 ANNIVERSARY EDITION produced by Alan and Susan Raymond who edited the 12-hour series into a two-hour feature film.
CUE THE SUN! THE INVENTION OF REALITY TV
Emily Nussbaum (The New Yorker magazine TV critic) unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world as told through the lively voices of the people who built it.
Included are interviews with Alan and Susan Raymond on their role as Directors of AN AMERICAN FAMILY in 1973 and includes comments regarding their first Emmy Award-winning experimental video THE POLICE TAPES that inspired both Hill Street Blues and Cops.
We thank Emily for selecting a production still of us filming AN AMERICAN FAMILY in sunny Santa Barbara for the cover of her new book to be released this June 25th.
CHILDREN IN WAR … REVISITED
Directors Alan and Susan Raymond revisit their Emmy Award-winning documentary CHILDREN IN WAR. As war reporters, the Raymonds filmed during ongoing conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Palestine and Israel from 1993 to 1998.
Thirty years later, peace has been achieved in Bosnia, Rwanda and Northern Ireland, while the war in Gaza continues to displace millions of Palestinians and has killed over 35,000 civilians to date.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) honored Alan and Susan with their 2010 Pioneer Award for their groundbreaking work beginning with the seminal nonfiction series AN AMERICAN FAMILY (1973). After AN AMERICAN FAMILY, the Raymonds formed their own company, Video Vérité, and produced THE POLICE TAPES (1977), which captures the life and times of a precinct in the South Bronx, and inspired numerous fiction and nonfiction law enforcement series. The couple received an Oscar® nomination for DOING TIME: Life Inside the Big House (1991) and an Oscar® for I AM A PROMISE: The Children of Stanton Elementary School (1993).
Alan Raymond and Susan Raymond have been selected for the Television Academy Archives as Emmy TV Legends. In their joint Archive interview, Alan and Susan talk about their groundbreaking cinéma vérité work on such television documentaries as AN AMERICAN FAMILY and
THE POLICE TAPES.
THE CONGREGATION
Defrocked Pastor Reinstated after LGBTQ Bans Lifted
Twenty years ago, Alan and Susan spent one year documenting the life of The United Methodist Church of Germantown, Pennsylvania in their 2004 PBS documentary THE CONGREGATION.
This documentary captured both the conflict surrounding the arrival of new pastor Reverend Fred Day while associate pastor Reverend Beth Stroud announced that she was in a committed same-sex relationship. This feature documentary follows the congregation’s support during Reverend Stroud’s trial where she was defrocked of her ministry.
The reinstated Reverend Beth Stroud was welcomed back by her fellow clergy after the United Methodist Church Conference finally struck down the longstanding anti-LGBTQ policies.
Reverend Fred Day said, “You Know God is around when old rubble of the past is built anew, hope overtakes despair and old barriers break open to new possibilities.”
Reverend Beth Stroud and Reverend Fred Day, above,
and below, as pictured on the cover of the 2004 DVD.
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