- Living Downstream
About the Team
Living Downstream is a production of The People’s Picture Company (The PPC). At The PPC, we aim to create entertaining and educational films that compel thought, encourage discussion and inspire change. We believe in the power of media and art to change our world. To learn more about The PPC, please visit: www.theppcinc.com
Our work on Living Downstream has enabled us to bring together a unique team of talented individuals.
Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.
Author of Living Downstream / Main Subject of the Film
Ecologist, author, and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized authority on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health. She received her doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan and master’s degree in English from Illinois State University. She is the author of Post-Diagnosis, a volume of poetry, and coauthor of a book on ecology and human rights in Africa, The Spoils of Famine. She has taught biology at Columbia College, Chicago, held visiting fellowships at the University of Illinois, Radcliffe/Harvard, and Northeastern University, and served on President Clinton’s National Action Plan on Breast Cancer.
Steingraber’s highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment presents cancer as a human rights issue. It was the first to bring together data on toxic releases with newly released data from U.S. cancer registries. Living Downstream won praise from international media, including The Washington Post, the Nation, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, The Lancet, and The London Times. In 1997, Steingraber was named a Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. In 1998, she received from the Jenifer Altman foundation the first annual Altman Award for “the inspiring and poetic use of science to elucidate the causes of cancer,” and from the New England chapter of the American Medical Writers Association, the Will Solimene Award for “excellence in medical communication.” In 1999, the Sierra Club heralded Steingraber as “the new Rachel Carson.” And in 2001, Carson’s own alma mater, Chatham College, selected Steingraber to receive its biennial Rachel Carson Leadership Award. In 2009, she was the recipient of the Public Health Hero Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles.
Continuing the investigation begun in Living Downstream, Steingraber’s new work, Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood, explores the intimate ecology of motherhood. Both a memoir of her own pregnancy and an investigation of fetal toxicology, Having Faith reveals the alarming extent to which environmental hazards now threaten each crucial stage of infant development. In the eyes of an ecologist, the mother’s body is the first environment for human life. The Library Journal selected Having Faith as one of its best books of 2001. In 2002, it was featured on “Kids and Chemicals,” a PBS documentary by Bill Moyers.
An enthusiastic and sought-after public speaker, Steingraber has keynoted conferences on human health and the environment throughout the United States and Canada and has been invited to lecture at many universities, medical schools, and teaching hospitals—including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She is recognized for her ability to serve as a two-way translator between scientists and activists. In 1999, as part of international treaty negotiations, she briefed U.N. delegates in Geneva, Switzerland on dioxin contamination of breast milk. Interviews with Steingraber have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, on National Public Radio, The Today Show, and Now With Bill Moyers.
Formerly on faculty at Cornell University, Sandra Steingraber is currently Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York and Currently a columnist and contributing writer at Orion magazine. She is married to sculptor Jeff de Castro. They are proud parents of Faith and Elijah.
Visit Sandra’s website at www.steingraber.com and read her weekly essays about environmental health here.
Chanda Chevannes
Producer / Director
Chanda is an award-winning producer / director with The People’s Picture Company in Toronto, Canada. She has been the driving force behind a wide range of creative documentary-based projects. Chanda specializes in complex, multi-layered films that are artistically rich and socially meaningful.
She is has recently completed Living Downstream, and is working on a yearlong outreach campaign to ensure that the film is seen, is used, and has an impact. It is her third creative documentary and her first feature-length film.
Chanda is passionate about the possibility of using film to create change. Recently, she and her partner, Nathan Shields, lived in Uganda for eight months, producing artful and educational films with Raising Voices, an organization committed to prevention violence against women and children in sub-Saharan Africa. Her previous films have won awards in the categories of: Public Health, Non-Violence and Social Issues.
Chanda currently resides in Toronto with her husband and producing partner, Nathan Shields and their daughter Hannah. She is passionate about public education and has authored several educational resources including an online weblog for the National Film Board of Canada’s Citizen Shift website. Chanda is a graduate of Sheridan College’s Media Arts Program and a member of the Documentary Organisation of Canada
Read Adventures in Outreach, Chanda's blog about her experiences working on outreach for Living Donwstream.
Nathan Shields
Producer / Editor
Nathan Shields is a talented and dynamic producer and editor. He has edited over twenty documentary and dramatic programs for Magnolia Pictures, 90th Parallel, Kensington Communications, Associated Producers, Breakthrough Films, The People's Picture Company, West Wind Pictures, CBC Television, PrimeVista, Lenz Communications and Ellis Entertainment. These projects have ranged from factual entertainment series to social issues documentaries to comedic short films. Nathan is a graduate of Sheridan College and the founder of The People’s Picture Company.
Benjamin Gervais
Director of Photography
Ben Gervais is an experienced video camera operator and a talented cinematographer. He has worked behind the camera for over ten years. He has shot many documentary films and has fulfilled the role of camera operator on a wide range of projects, including: feature films, television series and commercial productions.
“What we love we must protect.”
~ Sandra Steingraber
Order the DVD
The Living Downstream Educational DVD is now available for pre-order.
Learn more here.
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News
August 15, 2010
15 Upcoming Screenings announced!
April 16, 2010
Educational DVD now available for pre-order.
