My dog and I. Franklin, Tennessee

Born in 1980 in Palo Alto, California, I was raised in Franklin, Tennessee and educated at The University

of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Having made films since a young age, I studied philosophy at

Sewanee and became interested in documentary filmmaking. In 2001, a Freeman Fellowship made it

possible to travel to China to make "Missionaries From the West: Searching for Confucius in Modern

China" with Jim Peterman, my advisor at Sewanee. During the summer of 2002, I began a series

of recordings with long-time residents of the Sewanee area on the Cumberland Plateau, thanks to a

DuPont grant.

My recent projects include a documentary for the Caldwell family of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee,

on the life of Lafayette Hardwick Caldwell, Jr., a project on the Beeland Sisters of Greenville, Alabama,

and a short recording with the poet and artist Susie Sims Irvin of Franklin, Tennessee. I have had films

on HBO, at the Nashville Film Festival, the International Children's Film Festival, screenings at Zhongshan

Daxue in Guangzhuo, China, and the Midwestern Conference on Asian Affairs.

I live in Oxford, Mississippi and am completing a Masters Degree in Southern Studies at Ole Miss.

-  John Rory Fraser