The People vs. Leo Frank

FAIN: TI-50039-06

Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. (Melrose, MA 02176-3933)
Ben Loeterman (Project Director: November 2005 to September 2010)

Production of a 90-minute television documentary that examines the 1913 Leo Frank murder case in Georgia as one of the pivotal events in the modern history of the American South.

THE PEOPLE v. LEO FRANK will be a 90-minute documentary for PBS about one of the most complex and compelling criminal cases in American history: the 1913 murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan in an Atlanta pencil factory, and the trial and lynching of her accused killer, Leo Frank. Set against the backdrop of an American South struggling to shed its legacy of bigotry and xenophobia, the story combines the intrigue of a first-rate murder mystery with poignantly drawn portraits of its central characters and a thoughtful examination of racial, religious, regional and class prejudices in the early years of the 20th century.