Elizabeth Coffman and Ted Hardin are filmmakers who have recorded the environmental crisis in southern Louisiana for the last seven years. Working with Louisiana poet Martha Serpas, their documentary, "Veins in the Gulf," highlights the community of scientists, engineers and artists trying to save the productive bayou region from a series of recent disasters--relentless coastal erosion, hurricanes, and oil spills.

Elizabeth and Ted are college professors interested in communities recovering from disaster and trauma.  Their last feature, "One More Mile: A Dialogue on Nation-Building" investigated the post-war situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the collision between international workers and communities trying to heal after the devastating wounds of genocide.

Elizabeth Coffman

Elizabeth has published scholarship on early film, documentary media and violence.  She writes a column about being a "Long Distance Mom" for Inside Higher Ed and teaches at Loyola University Chicago.  She co-produced short films with the Gainesville women's collective, FemTV, and was the Producer/Writer for a Power to the People Rally, featuring Michael Moore and Ralph Nader (2003).

 

Ted Hardin

After receiving his M.A. from Florida State University in German Film Studies and an M.F.A. from the Ohio State University in Film and Video, Ted Hardin worked with a variety of artists at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada as director of photography, director, editor, lighting director, and assistant director.

Ted has collaborated with the alternative media collective Paper Tiger Television in New York, and researched and shot the documentary, Dark Near-Death Experiences for German Television. His own experimental narratives and movement-based films have shown at festivals and galleries throughout the U.S. and Europe. Ted is a Film and Video Professor at Columbia College Chicago.