Film Baby is a haven for independent filmmakers and those that love independent film. We have a love for the intensity, honesty and integrity that comes from working on a small budget film.

1-877-FILMBABY

Search over 2,000 Indie Films: All Fields Title & Synopsis Writer Director Producer & Production Company Cast & Crew (Names and Bios) Character/Role Festivals & Awards Influences Reviews & Reviewers Audio & Subtitle Language Genre Barcode

Synopsis

Cast

• Narrator: Janus Kotke
• On-Camera Author/Historian: JoAnn Levy | bio

  JoAnn Levy is often considered the voice of the women who took part in the California Gold Rush. She is also the award winning author of several books on California history and numerous articles in such publications as American History, The Californians, Old West, Overland Journal, and the Museum of California Quarterly. One of her books “They Saw the Elephant” about women in the gold rush was published in 1990 and garnered high praise. The San Francisco Chronicle acclaimed it "one of the best and most comprehensive accounts of gold rush life to date." She has been writing about western history for nearly twenty years.
  "The California Gold Rush had many voices," she said. "It was one event if you found gold, a different event if you did not. And it was different if you were a woman." Jo Ann Levy

• On-Camera Author/Historian: Curt Gentry | bio

  Curt Gentry is a well known American writer and author of “The Madams of San Francisco: An Irreverent History of the City by the Golden Gate.” He currently resides in San Francisco and has subsequently written several books on a variety of historical subjects, and the well known "Helter Skelter."

• On-Camera Author/Historian: Daniel Bacon | bio

  Historian Daniel Bacon was Director for the San Francisco Historical Society and has continued serving on the SFMHS Board of Directors since 2002. He is one of the guiding founders of the Barbary Coast trail, and the author of Walking San Francisco on the Barbary Coast Trail. "San Francisco has a great history," said Daniel Bacon, "I think in some ways it's more dynamic than the history of any other city."

• On-Camera Interviewee: Reverend Harry Chuck | bio

  Reverend Harry Chuck has worked in the San Francisco Chinatown community for more than fifty years, as executive director of Donaldina Cameron House, parish pastor and president of the city’s Public Housing Authority. He met Donaldina Cameron, and offers a wealth of personal insight regarding the legacy of the Donaldina Cameron house and aspects of San Francisco’s Chinatown history.

• On-Camera Historian: Dr. Susheel Bibbs | bio

  Dr. Susheel Bibbs lectures at the University of California at Berkeley. Backed by her Ph.D in Communications (focused on the mass communication of African-Diaspora history as well), her research and work have been hailed in musical, media, and humanities circles: The history Panel of the California Council for the Humanities has certified her research on Mary Pleasant. In 2004, Dr. Bibbs was awarded a "Keeper of the Negro Spiritual Achievement Award" by Friends of the Negro Spiritual, Oakland, and "for her unique recitals and master classes, which have contributed to intercultural understanding in the arts, for her performances, and for her landmark research and presentations on Mary Ellen Pleasant." In 1999, Dr. Bibbs was dubbed the "world's foremost authority on Pleasant" in a commendation by the Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco.

• On-Camera Expert: Carol Leigh | bio

  Carol Leigh was seated on the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's Task Force on Prostitution representing San Francisco's Commission on the Status of Women. She has been working as an activist and an artist in the Bay Area for more than twenty years. Since the late seventies, she has written and performed political satire as "Scarlet Harlot," and produced work in a variety of genres on women's issues including work based on her experience in San Francisco massage parlors. Leigh is one of the leaders of the sex workers' rights movement in the US and internationally- in fact, she coined the term "sex work" in the late seventies.

Crew

• Director of Photography: Micheal De Ohr
• Composer: Rodney Frias
• Art Director: Benita Crandall
• Propmaster: Ronald Linn
• Executive Producer: Venus Oriane/Michael Rohde
• Producer: Venus Oriane
• Director: Michael Rohde
• Director: Michael Rohde

Accolades