Tommie Dell Smith
Introduction (2-3 lines)
Tommie Dell Smith was Associate Producer for Broken Rainbow, a feature length documentary that won the 1984 Academy Award for Best Documentary. She was one of the founding members of the Independent Feature Project West, a national non-profit independent filmmakers' association and served on the Board of Directors for 4 years.
Her documentary Thornton Dial: Image of the Tiger was broadcast on WNET-TV in New York in February 1994. Together with Susan Pointon, she produced Breaking Silence: The Story of the Sisters at DeSales Heights. Since its completion in 1994, Breaking Silence has been broadcast nationally on VISN Satellite Cable Network and has been selected for screening at several national and international film festivals. It has won a Gold Apple at the National Educational Film and Video Festival in Oakland, CA, a CINE Golden Eagle in Washington, DC, a National Media Owl Award, and was selected for screening at the prestigious Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York. It was chosen Booklist Magazine's 1995 "Top of the List" winner. Tommie recently completed Child of Our Time a 45-minute documentary about a group of high school students' year-long examination of racial and religious oppression, and by extension, tolerance, as they respond artistically to Sir Michael Tippett's poem and music "A Child of Our Time." She recently completed her new feature documentary The Groove is Not Trivial about Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and the global movement for cultural revival.
