Civil Rights Era Photographer/FBI Informant Ernest Withers, Dissent & Surveillance with Phil Bertelsen & Lise Yasui

In episode 24, we chat with Director Phil Bertelsen and Producer Lise Yasui about their documentary THE PICTURE TAKER, which explores the complicated life of Civil Rights photographer and FBI informant Ernest Withers. The filmmakers discuss in detail the 15-year journey to make the film, Withers’ complicated legacy, and the importance of exposing government surveillance in times of dissent. 

“It’s not really a simple story of hero or villain.” –Phil Bertelsen

Phil Bertelsen is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer and director who uses film and television to entertain, inspire, and provoke audiences. Most recently, Phil’s feature documentary The Picture Taker was nominated for a Peabody Award. His History Channel documentary 761st Tank Battalion with Morgan Freeman is now streaming on Hulu, along with his episode of the Emmy winning documentary series, The 1619 Project. His previous project Who Killed Malcolm X, is a six-part series currently on Netflix that prompted a reinvestigation of the decades-old crime resulting in the exoneration of two wrongly convicted men.

Lise Yasui is a Philadelphia-based independent producer.  She directed the Oscar-nominated film, Family Gathering, which explored the legacy effects of the WWII Japanese American internment on her family. It aired on PBS's American Experience series and on the BBC.  She was a producer on the PBS Frontline special: The Gate of Heavenly Peace, which examined the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement in China and won a Peabody.  Yasui was the lead producer, researcher, and archivist on The Picture Taker.

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https://woodstockfilmfestival.org/podcast

THE PICTURE TAKER is on PBS + also available on GoodDocs.net

Phil Bertelsen Additional Projects:
Who Killed Malcolm X on Netflix
The 1619 Project on Hulu
761st Tank Battalion on Hulu

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