GOOD TALK WITH PAUL ESPINOSA
Paul Espinosa is an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker and educator who has been making films for nearly 40 years. Paul wrote, directed and produced SINGING OUR WAY TO FREEDOM. His films explore a wide variety of social and historical issues including school desegregation, immigration, the US-Mexico border, the Mexican Revolution, the lives of undocumented families, gentrification and the 1846 war between Mexico and the United States. Paul's films have been screened at festivals around the world and have won many awards including eight Emmys and major awards from the Santa Barbara, Guadalajara, Minneapolis and Houston International Film Festivals, San Antonio CineFestival, the San Diego Latino Film Festival, the National Latino Film and Video Festival, the American Bar Association, the California Teacher's Association, the California School Boards Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Conference on Christians and Jews.
Espinosa received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and his B.A. from Brown University, both degrees in Anthropology. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University and has shared his expertise, experience and social activism at festivals, universities and community centers across the Americas. He has received major funding from many agencies including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, ITVS, American Playhouse, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Latino Public Broadcasting, the California Public Broadcasting Commission and the state humanities councils of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Among his films for PBS are: The Lemon Grove Incident, The Hunt for Pancho Villa, ...and the earth did not swallow him, The U.S.-Mexican War: 1846-1848, The Price of Renewal, In the Shadow of the Law, The Border, Uneasy Neighbors, 1492 Revisited, and Ballad of an Unsung Hero.