"They were truly in love. What happened to them is horrible – it's elder abuse and it's happening all over. We're hopeful this film can make a difference."
Core Team
Laura Checkoway
Director + Editor + Producer
Laura Checkoway's Edith+Eddie has won numerous awards including the IDA Documentary Awards Best Short 2017. The film is executive produced by Steve James and Cher. Her award-winning debut film LUCKY (also executive produced by Steve James) screened at festivals across the globe and premiered on television in 2014. With a background in journalism, Laura penned revealing profiles and investigative features for numerous publications and has co-authored acclaimed celebrity autobiographies.
Thomas Lee Wright
Producer
Filmmaker Thomas Lee Wright has produced documentaries for the Discovery Channel, Human Rights Watch, and others. He has been a story editor at Walt Disney and Columbia Pictures and creative executive at Paramount. He has written screenplays for every major studio, including New Jack City for Warner Brothers. Currently, he is Executive Producer of Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying starring Laurence Fishburne, Bryan Cranston, and Steve Carell. His book, The Family Guide to Preventing Elder Abuse is available online and in bookstores everywhere.
Karina Rotenstein
Co-Producer
Karina Rotenstein is a Canadian film producer, programmer and creative development advisor in documentary and fiction. Her film titles include: Lucky (2014); 10% - What Makes A Hero? (2013); and the upcoming Screen Time (2018). She is the Industry Conference Programmer at TIFF [Toronto International Film Festival], including featured masterclasses with Aaron Sorkin, Jill Soloway, Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Rob Reiner. She has also served a four-year role as programming and funds manager at Hot Docs, and has contributed programming to a number of international festivals.
P. Corwin Lamm
Co-Producer + Editor
P. Corwin Lamm is the editor and producer of the award-winning documentary Survival Prayer. His other documentary credits include co-directing Have I Got a Witness and editing Bury Me in Redwood Country. Lamm is a multimedia artist whose weekly radio show, Tesla Effect, can be heard on Newtown Radio.
Neil Barrett
Cinematographer
Neil Barrett is a British director of photography who has worked on over 30 broadcast documentary films for National Geographic, BBC, PBS, Discovery, The History Channel, NBC, ABC and CNN. Three of his feature documentaries - The Woodmans (2010), The Other City (2009), and Kicking it (2008) - have been released theatrically in the United States. His work has won several awards: a Columbia Dupont award for excellence in journalism, the Edward R. Murrow award for a documentary on the civil war in Liberia, and four Cine Golden Eagle Awards.
John Larson
Cinematographer
John Larson is a documentary cinematographer who works on a wide variety of projects with a focus on vérité filmmaking.
Executive Producers
Cher
Executive Producer
Often regarded as the Goddess of Pop, Cher is a singer and actress who got her start as half of Sonny and Cher in the 1960s. She has since amassed international fame with an array of top 10 hits and screen roles, winning an Oscar for her role in Moonstruck. After seeing a news piece covering Edith Hill and Eddie Harrison's legal battle, Cher became involved in helping their case.
Steve James
Executive Producer
Steve James' affiliation with Kartemquin began in 1987 with the start of production of Hoop Dreams, for which he served as director, producer, and co-editor. He has since then become one of the most acclaimed documentary makers of his generation, with noted works being Stevie, The New Americans, The War Tapes, At the Death House Door, The Interrupters, and most recently, Life Itself.
Gordon Quinn
Executive Producer
Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 50 years. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home for Life (1966) "an extraordinarily moving documentary." With Home for Life Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people.
Betsy Steinberg
Executive Producer
Executive Director Betsy Steinberg joined Kartemquin in December 2015 and oversees daily operations, development, and serves as Executive Producer on Kartemquin projects. Prior to Kartemquin she spent eight years as Managing Director of the Illinois Film Office where she spearheaded Illinois' transformation into a world class film destination. She was instrumental in the passage of the Illinois film tax credit and implemented an overall business development strategy resulting in over $1 billion in direct economic impact.