Grambling, La., 2010. Côte Blanche produced a short documentary for Exhibits, Etc and The Eddie G. Robinson Museum. From simple beginnings in Louisiana’s cotton fields, Eddie G. Robinson strived for one dream - to coach football. Surmounting racial obstacles one touchdown at time, Coach Rob became one of the winningest coaches ever.

Robinson sent over 200 students to the professional football leagues including the first black player from an historically black college. He mentored for four NFL Hall of Famers, and the first African-American quarterback to win the Superbowl, Doug Williams.

Not only did Eddie Robinson transform the world of football, he gave young men the chance to live the American dream in at time when adversity seemed undefeatable.

A documentary by Michelle Benoit and Glen Pitre

Produced by Jason Buch,  Edited by Jen Suran

A Côte Blanche Production for
Exhibits, Etc
The Eddie G. Robinson Museum
The Louisiana Secretary of State

Copyright © 2010 Friends of the Eddie Robinson Museum. All Rights Reserved

Completing the trilogy, Wings Over the Wetlands emphasized Barataria-Terrebonne’s critical role in bird migrations.

This half-hour TV documentary examines a phenomenon so familiar we often hardly notice it, the annual migration of birds, as a portal to explore Louisiana culture, history, ecology, economics, and the arts. There is no other film on this topic that focuses on (or even significantly mentions) Louisiana. Wings Over the Wetlands demonstrates the value of habitat preservation, which provides sustenance not only for wildlife but also for numerous folk occupations.

www.btnep.org
(request a free copy by calling 1-800-259-0869)

DRESS UP YOUR BIRDING ARTICLE OR WEB SITE by downloading any of our Louisiana bird pictures featured below.

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» www.btnep.org (request a free copy by calling 1-800-259-0869)

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First in our series of environmental films, the award-winning hour-long Haunted Waters, Fragile Lands follows immigrants to the Mississippi River delta to show how history and ecology transform each other.

»www.btnep.org (request a free copy by calling 1-800-259-0869)

Narrated by Meryl Streep, in 70mm giant-screen IMAX, Louisiana is ravaged by killer hurricanes, as seen through the eyes of a talented bluesman, a pretty young fiddler, pianist Allen Toussaint, and a mother alligator.  Sponsored by the Audubon Nature Institute, directed by IMAX legend Greg MacGillivray (Everest) and written and co-directed by Glen Pitre, this award winning film won the hearts of audiences around the world.

» Purchase on Amazon

» For more information: www.hurricaneonthebayou.com

Many scientists now believe that pipeline sediment delivery holds the promise of expeditiously recreating the natural system of barrier islands, marshes, and ridgelands that provide the only practical long term hurricane protection both to America’s energy hub and to the port and city of New Orleans. The documentary looks at how pipeline sediment delivery works, how it’s being used in other countries around the world, and how it might be implemented in the Louisiana coastal zone.

Harvest to Restore, a co-production of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, and Côte Blanche Productions, Inc, looks at the new methods being used to try and save the state’s rapidly disappearing coastline and wetlands.

It took seven thousand five hundred years for the Mississippi River to create the wetlands of Southeast Louisiana.

It took about seventy-five years for Man to effect the environmental changes that would destroy them.

Scientists estimate that there’s only a decade, at most two, before it’s too late to save them.

With the massive land loss along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast finally being widely recognized as a nationally-critical environmental disaster, the decades of studying the problem are finally, fitfully, shifting into implementation of large scale restoration.  But when a problem is so massive — a thousand square miles of coastal lands have already disappeared — exactly what can we do to stop the damage?

Harvest to Restore examines in depth the technology that a growing consensus of scientists believe is the only workable solution to the Gulf Coastal land loss crisis.  Pipeline sediment delivery — no, it’s not a sexy name — holds the promise of expeditiously recreating the natural system of barrier islands, marshes, and ridgelands that provide the only practical long term hurricane protection both to America’s energy hub and to the port and city of New Orleans.

The documentary looks at how pipeline sediment delivery works, how it’s being used in other countries around the world, and how it might be implemented in the Louisiana coastal zone.

Award-winning writer/producer/director Michelle Benoit, along with co-producer/husband Glen Pitre, are lifelong residents of the Louisiana coastal zone.  Their films have been shown nationwide and around the world and have been translated into more than sixteen languages.

Available from LPB
and
www.btnep.org
(request a free copy by calling 1-800-259-0869)

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Willie Francis Must Die Again won Best Documentary (over 1800 competing submissions) at the 2006 Memphis International Film Festival, one of the largest film festivals in the South, and won best Social Justice Documentary at the 2006 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

Danny Glover narrates the unique story of Willie Francis, who survived execution in the Louisiana electric chair in 1946. After the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow a second execution, Felix Frankfurther — the Justice who cast the deciding fifth vote — then went to work behind the scenes to try to get the sentence commuted to life in prison.

Winner, Best Documentary, 2007 Santa Monica Film Festival
Winner, Best Documentary, 2006 Memphis International Film Festival
Winner, Best Documentary, 2006 Charlotte Film Festival
Winner, Social Justice Documentary, 2006 New York Independent Film & Video Festival

A 16-old African American who has never previously been in trouble is arrested for the murder of a Southern sheriff’s brother.  After a one-day trial, Willie Francis is sentenced to death.  He goes to the electric chair in 1946.

Willie Francis went to the electric chair AGAIN in 1948.  His first electrocution didn’t kill him. In the intervening two years the shy son of a share cropper became a national cause celebre, forcing a war-weary nation to re-examine its beliefs about crime and punishment, and nearly tearing apart the U.S. Supreme Court, where judicial giants like Felix Frankfurter and Hugo Black wrestled with their consciences and each other.

This true-life drama is filled with heroes and villains. Willie Francis Must Die Again brings them to life with the poignant, on-camera testimony of Willie’s childhood friend, while Supreme Court scholars unravel the maze of behind-the-scenes maneuvering that is worthy of fiction — except that it all really happened. Meanwhile, appearances by Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) show how the Willie Francis case still informs the debate over capital punishment today.

Produced by Glen Pitre and Allan Durand and co-produced by Michelle Benoit. Written & directed by Allan Durand. 52 minutes, Beta-SP.

On the Louisiana bayous, even today, alligator grease relieves asthma, a buried potato cures warts, and “smoking a baby” eases the pains of colic. To pull back the curtain from this distinctive tradition of faith healing, herbal remedy, and ritual magic, Good For What Ails You follows respected “treaters” as they gather wild teas, brew home-made cough syrup, invoke the saints at their home altars, and most of all, heal the sick. Want to know more about traiteurs?  Check out the film’s study guides, bibliographies, and more.

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New Orleans jazz man Don Vappie finds his sidemen scattered by Katrina, his flooded-out Mom sleeping on his couch, and his 8 year-old grandson clamoring to join the band. Tour the front lines of a devastated city’s cultural rebirth: offstage, where race is infinitely more nuanced than black or white; backstage, where which instrument you play can be a political statement; and joyously onstage, where the only thing that matters is music, and local legends make it cook for a benefit concert. American Creole was produced and directed by the award-winning husband-wife team of Glen Pitre and Michelle Benoit.

Telly Award winner

“TV Pick of the Day”  Washington Post

“A terrific documentary.”   Offbeat music magazine

“I loved the film. I was moved and had a better idea of the ineffables of our culture than I got from a million journalistic essays.”     NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu

“Reveals the terror New Orleans people have been through… and through it all, humor sustains.”                         Nick Spitzer, host of American Routes on PRI

“The music is spectacular!”  Bruce Raeburn, Director, Hogan Jazz Archives

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