The Films
Brief descriptions

This critically acclaimed three-part series explores Southern Literature from World War I through the Civil Rights Movement to the present. Tell About the South was nominated "Best Documentary Series of the Year" by the International Documentary Association.

The series tells the story of the great Southern writers, both black and white, in the context of the region's history and culture. It includes William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor and many, many more. The series is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Best Documentary of the Year Nominee, International Documentary Association, (1992). To Render a Life is a detailed and dramatic portrait of a contemporary poor, rural family as seen through the eyes of James Agee and Walker Evans' literary classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. The film also reflects on the documentary process with comments by acclaimed social documentarians such as Fred Wiseman and Robert Coles.

This feature film explores the legacy of the American Civil War - the ways in which that cataclysmic event is still felt in American society. It is a film about the nature of History in our national and personal lives - the past as prologue. Long Shadows features Studs Terkel, John Hope Franklin, Jimmy Carter, C.Vann Woodward, and Robert Penn Warren.

Emmy Nomination (1984). This feature film tells the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority - the TVA - as both political parable and human drama. The Electric Valley puts a human face on the nation's largest energy producer and one of the remarkable institutions of our time. A journal of the American political soul.

Academy Award Nomination for Best Feature Documentary (1980). The life and work of Pulitizer Prize-winning novelist-poet-journalist-screenwriter-film critic James Agee are examined in this highly acclaimed film biography.

This touching portrait tells the story of Father James Harold Flye, lifelong friend and mentor to the writer, James Agee. The film reminds us how truly pleasant and heartening simple friendship can be.

A boxed set of five films by Ross Spears, including Agee, The Electric Valley, Long Shadows, To Render a Life, and An Afternoon with Father Flye.

A delightful portrait of Nick Spears at age 27 months, Toddlin' has proven equally popular with child-loving adults and with other toddlers, for whom Nick is kind of a two-year old version of Tom Sawyer – sweet funny, and always ready for an adventure. If you love babies, if you are thinking of having a baby, if you are working with or studying babies, Toddlin' will fill your mind and warm your heart. Nick's adventures continue in the just-completed sequel, Train Boys.

In 1993, when Toni Morrison, author of Beloved, Sula, and Song of Solomon, became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, the James Agee Film Project was the only film crew to film her memorable acceptance speech in Stockholm, Sweden. In her speech, Ms. Morrison makes an eloquent plea for the proper use of language in a world in which language is often abused.