Getting Back to Abnormal

Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker have been making films together since the late 1970s. They have a national reputation for making audience-friendly documentaries that tackle important subjects in American culture with wit and humor, including social class (People Like Us), language (American Tongues), women's lives (Moms, Sex:Female), and politics (Vote for Me, Louisiana Boys). Their work has won two Peabody Awards and two duPont-Columbia Awards.

Andrew Kolker has been making films with Louis Alvarez and Peter Odabashian for decades. They have a national reputation for making audience-friendly documentaries that tackle important subjects in American culture with wit and humor, including social class (People Like Us), language (American Tongues), women's lives (Moms, Sex:Female), and politics (Vote for Me, Louisiana Boys). Their work has won two Peabody Awards and two duPont-Columbia Awards.

Peter Odabashian is an award winning producer and editor. He has edited more than 20 documentaries and has been a sound editor on over 17 feature films from Reds to Carlito's Way. In 1996, he worked with Alvarez and Kolker for the first time on Vote for Me and won an Emmy for his efforts. Since then he has co-produced Sex:Female, Small Ball: A Little League Story, and The Anti-Americans with Alvarez and Kolker and he became their partner at The Center for New American Media in 2005.

Paul Stekler’s documentaries about American politics and history have won numerous national honors including multiple Emmys, Peabodys, and du-Pont-Columbia University Journalism awards. In addition to his collaborations with the Center for New American Media, Vote for Me: Politics in America and Louisiana Boys: Raised on Politics ( on P.O.V. in 1992), his films include the Sundance Special Jury Prize winner George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire (directed and produced with Dan McCabe), Last Man Standing: Politics Texas Style (which aired on P.O.V. in 2004), and two of the Eyes on the Prize civil rights series films. His latest project was Frontline’s The Choice 2008, about the Obama-McCain election race, which he co-produced and wrote with director Michael Kirk. Stekler, who has a doctorate in American politics and worked as political pollster in Louisiana, is also the chair of the Radio-Television-Film Dept. at the University of Texas in Austin.