The Winding Stream is the tale of the dynasty at the very heart of country music. Starting with the seminal Original Carter Family, A.P., Sara and Maybelle; this film-in-progress traces the ebb and flow of their influence, the transformation of that act into the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle, the marital alliance between June Carter and music legend Johnny Cash, and the efforts of the present-day family to keep this legacy alive.
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A story that has never been told in its entirety. The Winding Stream covers the epic sweep of this family’s saga all in one film. It is told by family members; including Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash, Janette Carter, as well as the musicians they influenced. And their musical contribution is vividly illustrated in performances by roots music practitioners like John Prine, George Jones, Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson and many others.
We have filmed over 60 hours of original material and have just a small amount of shooting left in order to complete the production phase of the film. The film has been funded from significant grants provided by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Faerie Godmother Fund in addition to many private donations. We now seek funding to cover the last part of the shooting, post-production, music and archival costs.
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….A Film By Beth Harrington
Beth Harrington is an award-winning independent producer, director and writer, born in Boston and transplanted to the Pacific Northwest. Making media professionally since 1977; she most often focuses on work that explores American history, music and culture.
Harrington’s independent production Welcome to the Club – The Women of Rockabilly, a music documentary about the pioneering women of rock and roll, was honored with a 2003 Grammy nomination and has been seen on public television and at film festivals in the U.S. and abroad. This and other work reflects a long-standing love of music. In a previous lifetime, she was a rock & roll singer, most noted for her years as a member of Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers on the Warner Brothers Sire Records label.
Through Boston’s Documentary Guild and WGBH, she has worked as a line producer and associate producer on various shows for PBS, among them programs for NOVA, Frontline and The Health Quarterly, as well as two PBS specials. These shows have been honored nationally with a Peabody Award (Dating in the Age of AIDS) and two Emmy nominations (In the Path of a Killer Volcano and Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back).
Harrington now enjoys a steady and productive relationship with Oregon Public Broadcasting producing, researching, and developing shows for national broadcast. She performed producer/director/writer duties for the popular PBS series History Detectives as well as Digital Television: A Cringely Crash Course, one of PBS’s first HDTV offerings. She also served as co-producer/writer of Aleutians: Cradle of the Storms for PBS and Natural History New Zealand. In addition, she has written for various history series for OPB and Annenberg Media including The Homes of FDR, and episodes of Bridging World History and America’s History in the Making.
Harrington also works with OPB on a local level making films for their acclaimed Oregon Experience series. She is the producer of Kam Wah Chung – the story of two Chinese men who made themselves indispensable to the Eastern Oregon community during the Gold Rush. Also for that series, she produced, directed and wrote Searching for York, the little known story of an enslaved man who served as a valued member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Both programs were nominated for Northwest Emmys in the Best Historical and Cultural Program category and in the Best Writing category. Two other films, Beervana, a “frothy” history program on Oregon beer culture, and Zigzag, an innovative environmental public affairs show have also received Northwest Emmy nominations.
Her critically acclaimed autobiographical documentary, The Blinking Madonna and Other Miracles aired on national public television and screened at numerous film festivals. Both this film and Welcome to the Club were produced in association with the Independent Television Service.
She is active in various film communities, having served on the board of Film Action Oregon, as well as the Oregon Media Production Association. She is a past President of Women in Film/New England and a former Vice President of Women in Film/Seattle. She is a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. She has been a media instructor at Washington State University, Lewis & Clark College, Bunker Hill Community College, New England School of Photography, Boston Film/Video Foundation, the Northwest Film Center and the Olympia Film Society as well as an artist-in-residence at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Communications from Syracuse University and a Master’s degree in American Studies from University of Massachusetts – Boston.
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Visit Beth’s website: www.bethharrington.com