Producers – Nancy Porter and Harriet Reisen

In Distribution

Shot in HD, and using animation and digital effects as well as docudrama. this award winning 82-minute production is the first film biography of this American icon. Producer-Writer Harriet Reisen and Producer-Director Nancy Porter, working from a script drawn from primary sources and filming in many original locations, have used documentary and dramatic techniques as well as experimental and flash animation, green-screen, and digital effects to bring a fresh approach to the PBS historical documentary form. An independent project at its inception, the program was co-produced with WNET and will be broadcast on American Masters on December 28, 2009 at 9pm.

Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women is the story of the quest of a volatile talented woman, to rescue her family from grueling poverty and find wealth, fame and happiness. Alcott was born into the inner circle of 19th century New England’s radical cultural and liberation movements, the transcendentalists and abolitionists. She learned about literature from Emerson; Thoreau took her on his nature walks; and she saw the Civil War up close as an army nurse. She had a secret career writing pulp fiction featuring hashish users, spies, revolutionaries, and women in every possible kind of crisis that was not discovered for 50 years after her death. Louisa Alcott was no little woman, and her life was no children’s book. Featuring Tony winner/Oscar nominee Jane Alexander, and starring 3-time Obie winner Elizabeth Marvel as Louisa May Alcott.

AWARDS and SCREENINGS
Cine Gold Eagle
Grand Award Providence Film Festival
Audience Choice Cape Cod Filmmaker Takeover
Best Feature Doc L.A. Reel Women Festival
Best Family Feature Garden State Film Festival

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
GZ-DOC (Canton) Int’l Documentary Film Festival
Santa Fe Film Festival
Through Women’s Eyes Film Festival

Read what the critics are saying about the film:

“engrossing… makes her come alive…. a reel gem.”
– The Providence Journal

“Louisa shines through in all her humor, vitality, and edginess…The film rises to the highest standards of quality and insight…”
– John Matteson, author 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography

“People think they know Louisa May Alcott through Little Women, but her life—especially the dark side—is unexpectedly, extremely interesting. Truly a wonderful story.”
– Robert Mandel, American Film Institute

“Viewers will be inspired to reread the Alcott works after seeing this engrossing program.”
-  Library Journal

“entertaining and instructive introduction to Alcott… appeals to a wide audience”
– Booklist

The book, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen and published by Henry Holt and Co., portrays a writer as worthy of interest in her own right as her most famous character, Jo March. A fresh take on this remarkable and prolific writer who secretly wrote pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and served heroically as a nurse in the Civil War, Louisa May Alcott is in the end also the story of how the beloved and enduring classic Little Women came to be.

“She was no little woman and her life was no children’s book.”

Read what the critics are saying about the book:

“enchanting”… The Wall Street Journal

“delicious”… Kirkus Reviews

“beautifully and sympathetically written”… John Matteson, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Eden’s Outcasts

“Ms. Reisen is a master storyteller”…The Washington Times

“vibrant”… Vogue

“Alcott’s compelling personality has never been better described.” —Robert Richardson, author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire

Click here to read the reviews and purchase a copy.

Visit the film and the book website at Nancy Porter Productions – Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
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