Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Filmmaker Steven Lawrence Is Helping To Change Our World

It’s hard to make a consistent living as a documentary filmmaker in America, so it’s good to balance risky projects with ones that are likely to pay better — what’s known as, “One for them, one for me.” In my own case, my fee from Married In America, a feature doc I made with Michael Apted that was financed by A&E and New Line Television, allowed me to make Vis à Vis: Native Tongues for PBS, the doc mentioned earlier based on conversations and performances shared between Native American performance artist James Luna and Aboriginal performance actor/writer Ningali Lawford.

As a part of our series about “Filmmakers Making A Social Impact” I had the pleasure of interviewing Steven Lawrence.

Steven is a producer-director and media pioneer who has been making documentaries for over 30 years about artists, activists and everyday heroes — from underground Soviet rockers to a…