Pidgin: The Voice of Hawaiʻi
This one-hour documentary profiles the language of Hawai’i’s working people in its rise from plantation jargon to a source of island identity and pride. Born on sugar plantations and spoken by more than half of Hawai’i’s population, this language captures the essence of multi-ethnic Hawai’i and is the language of Hawai’i’s heart and soul. Once again under attack by educators and bloggers, will Pidgin survive? National PBS Broadcast 2009 – 2010.
Editor: Shirley Thompson.
Director: Marlene Booth
PBS Showcase
For the 2012 PBS Showcase. This reel, presented by Pacific Islanders in Communications, opened the conference in the first session of the first day, and opened for my favorite ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro. Play it loud!
Trailer editor: Shirley Thompson
Executive producer for PIC: Ruth Bolan
Special Circumstances
This documentary follows Chilean exile Hector Salgado as he returns to Chile from the US to seek and confront the men who imprisoned him and who tortured and killed his friends after the 1973 coup.
Best Editing Award, September 2007, Cine Ceara Film Festival, Fortaleza, Brazil
Editor, producer, writer: Shirley Thompson
Director, producer: Marianne Teleki
Tangled Roots
Through intimate interviews with both her Jewish relatives in America and her German Lutheran relatives abroad, she discovers a rich family tapestry spanning three continents, shaped by war, courage, prejudice, and fear. Tangled Roots gives a personal voice to a rarely-heard minority, a generation of German children branded forever by their parent’s actions during the war. The film also gives an original voice to the countless Jewish friends and family changed forever by the horrors of the Holocaust.
Editor: Shirley Thompson
Director: Heidi Schmidt Emberling
San Francisco in the Movies: Bogart & Beyond
The history of San Francisco’s involvement in film from Bogart, to Hitchcock, to George Lucas, to Pixar.
Editors: Shirley Thompson & Dee Watt
Director: Ken Swartz
San Francisco at the Movies: the Silent Era
The story of how San Francisco rivaled Hollywood during the Silent Era of filmmaking. Fascinating 1920s footage of San Francisco.
Editor: Shirley Thompson
Director: Ken Swartz
Yield to Total Elation
YIELD TO TOTAL ELATION explores the life and work of the enigmatic and visionary artist Achilles G. Rizzoli. A mundane architectural draftsman by day, the architectural transcriber of the divine by night, Rizzoli created elaborate Beaux-Arts influenced monuments which would never be built. Accompanied by his witty and poignant commentary, the drawings served as translations for the voices and the hallucinations that haunted him. By deftly weaving Rizzoli’s words, archival footage, photos and evocative present day scenes of San Francisco’s historic architecture, the film tells the story of Rizzoli’s life and his work — an exaltation of architecture as pleasure, as memorial, as redemption.
Editor: Shirley Thompson
Director: Pat Ferrero
Surfing for Life
Surfers stills stoked in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Winner of Audience Award for Best Documentary, Hawaii International Film Festival, 2000.
Editor: Shirley Thompson
Director: David L. Brown
Producer: Roy Earnest
San Francisco in the 20’s
I had the great fortune to edit three documentaries at KRON in San Francisco. The whole film is now online thanks to the Bay Area Television Archive…watch here.
Northern California Emmy Award for Outstanding Editing
Editor: Shirley Thompson
Director/producer: Joan Saffa
Writer: Charlie Pearson
Executive Producer: Jim Swanson