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Girl Wrestler

Texas teenager Tara Neal wrestles through the last year that state guidelines allow her to compete with boys, amid conflict and pressures from family and community.

Series

Independent Lens, True Stories

Premiere Date

December 14, 2004

Length

60 minutes

Diane Zander Mason

Producer

An Emmy Award winner for her work on the documentary Moving Stories, Diane Zander makes documentaries while teaching media production at the University of Texas at Austin. Her film and video work has been shown at festivals across North America and has appeared on Image Union, a Chicago PBS showcase for independent film and video. Zander has been honored with grants in support of her work from the Texas Council for the Humanities, Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund, Women in Film, the Liberace Foundation, and the Caucus Foundation for Television Producers, Writers, and Directors. Her previous work includes Pretty as a Picture (1999), Beauty School (1997) and paternity is uncertain (1997). The majority of her film and video work deals with gender and how female identities are constructed and complicated. Zander served as an associate producer, writer, and editor for WTTW/Chicago on Moving Stories and as a video journalist for CNN Headline News. She also has worked on numerous independent productions as a cinematographer, sound recordist, and online editor. A summa cum laude graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in radio/television/film, she received her MFA in film and video production at the University of Texas at Austin.