Writer/Director & Executive Producer: Lulu Friesdat is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her work focuses on election reform and political transformation and has received over 4 million views online. She was one of the earliest reporters to demonstrate how vulnerable electronic voting equipment is – filming grad students including the now well-known J. Alex Halderman – successfully hacking an AccuVote-TS voting machine in 2007. The machine was in widespread use at the time. It was many years before fears about election hacking became part of the mainstream narrative. At DEF CON 25, a hackers convention, she filmed hackers taking control of direct record electronic (DRE) voting machines in less than an hour, and also showed a different set of hackers gaining access to electronic poll books. At DEF CON 26 she filmed hackers able to change the results of an optical scan voting machine in use in 24 states in the U.S. She followed up with a video exposing the dangerously poor security in place for Ohio’s electronic voting machines prior to the 2018 Midterms. Her investigation into the congressional primary race between Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova resulted in a court victory declaring that a top Florida election official had engaged in illegal conduct. Her revelations about the discrepancies in the Racine County Wisconsin vote count during the 2016 presidential recount led to the decertification of the voting machines in use there. Her print articles offer details on Georgia's perpetually failing voting equipment, and provide background on a historic ballot initiative to restore voting rights to ex-felons in Florida. Her television news assignments include producing profiles of presidential candidates for MSNBC, editing with the NBC documentary unit and Nightline, as well as Good Morning America, where she contributed to Emmy award-winning coverage. She was on the editing team of Gideon’s Army, an Emmy-nominated HBO documentary that follows the personal stories of public defenders in the Deep South. Gideon's Army received the U.S. Documentary Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Ridenhour Prize, fostering the spirit of courage and truth. Holler Back: [not] Voting in an American Town received a Best Documentary award from the Sunscreen Film Festival, and was featured in The Hollywood Reporter as part of a group of "thoughtful and provocative" films being made by women. Ms. Friesdat also did much of the camera work and edited the film. She has been both quoted and featured in The New York Times; and her journalism and advocacy work have been featured in The Washington Post, The Hill, Politico, Now This, Salon, MSN.com, the Young Turks, Truthout, City & State NY, NY Focus, The NY Daily News, Gothamist, The Post & Courier, 1010Wins, WBAI, and the Albany Times Union. Follow her on X/Twitter @LuluFriesdat
Consulting Producer: Maia Harris has produced and written numerous documentaries. Banished, directed by Marco Williams, premiered at Sundance Film Festival. It won the Spectrum Award at the Full Frame Film Festival - and the Grand Jury Prize at the Miami Film Festival (PBS). Other credits include The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo (PBS), Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel (AMC), Storyville: The Naked Dance (PBS), about New Orleans’ turn-of-the-century red-light district; Desire an exploration of teenage motherhood through video diaries, and Listening to Children: A Moral Journey with Robert Coles (PBS). She began her career as a researcher on the civil rights television history, Eyes on the Prize II. Harris co-founded the New Orleans Charter Middle School, and consulted for arts organizations in New Orleans developing educational programs. She is the recipient of a Lyndhurst Prize, a Louisiana Division of the Arts fellowship, two Emmy awards and two Emmy nominations.
Associate Producer: Claire Missanelli co-Produced Power Trip which won 2 jury awards at the prestigious Berlin film festival and was screened in 60 countries, including the United States. It was broadcast on PBS's Independent Lens, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and garnered 8 other film festival awards including best documentary feature at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto. Other films include SlamNation, a documentary that illuminates the vibrant slam poetry movement. Claire passed away from breast cancer on March 31, 2011. She is dearly missed by her friends in the film community.
Editorial Consultant: Margo Freistadt is a writer and editor. She served as copy editor for 18 years at the San Francisco Chronicle and has worked for numerous other publications including The San Francisco Examiner and the Christian Science Monitor. She is currently an editorial consultant with the San Francisco Exploratorium a museum of science, art and human perception.
Editorial Consultant: Lynn Ludlow is a writer and editor. He retired from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003 after serving 40 years both there and at the San Francisco Examiner. His assignments there included the Insight section, investigative reporting, editorial writer/op-ed editor, beat reporter and citydesk editor. He lectured and taught at San Francisco State University for 20 years, and had an additional teaching appointment at Columbia University's Summer Program for Minorities in Journalism. Former director, International Society for General Semantics, and contributor to its journal. Former member, Construction Laborers and Hodcarriers Union Local 371. Ask him to tell you about the time he interviewed the Beatles.
Editorial Consultant: Lisa Orlando is an Emmy award winning broadcast journalist and feature film producer/editor. She has worked with some of the top broadcast journalists in the nation at CBS NEWS/60 MINUTES, CNN, NBC, and CNBC. A former dancer, she taught at Emerson College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. All-American Boy, an independent feature that she edited and co-produced for screenwriting guru John Truby, won the Gold Special Jury Award at the Houston International Film Festival.
Holler Back - [not] Voting in an American Town is the documentary debut of Shugah Works. The film won Best Documentary at the Sunscreen Film Festival and aired on public television. It was featured in The Hollywood Reporter, as part of a group of "thoughtful and provocative films " films being made by women. Film Festival screenings include the Women’s International Film Festival, The Philadelphia Film Festival, Ohio’s “We The People” Fest, The Trenton Film Festival and The Seattle True Independent Film Festival. We created a nation-wide event to motivate young people to vote by screening at colleges across the country, including a Q&A at Harvard.