Writer/Producer/Director
Glen Pitre

Born November 10, 1955 in Cut Off, Louisiana, Glen Pitre earned his way through Harvard by working on shrimp boats each summer. By age 25, American Film magazine had dubbed him “Father of the Cajun Cinema” as his low-budget, French dialect “gumbo westerns” broke house records in bayou country theaters. With the help of the Sundance Institute, his internationally-lauded 1986 film Belizaire the Cajun became his first English-language production. Since then Pitre's work in a variety of media, frequently in collaboration with wife Michelle Benoit, has earned him numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate and a knighthood from France. In 2003, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert acclaimed Pitre as “a legendary American regional director.”

Pitre said he discovered American Creole: New Orleans Reunion musician Don Vappie while casting a band for The Scoundrel’s Wife.

"I first heard Don playing at a church. It was great stuff. We said 'This is it.' I didn't know beforehand that he was Creole. The scene took place during segregation. The band might have been black, might have been white, but couldn't be mixed. We could have said he was white and no one would have questioned it. So I told Don, 'I hate to do this to you in this day and age, but I need you to show up with a black band or a white band, either or, you choose.' And he showed up with a black band.”

The American Creole: New Orleans Reunion project was suggested by Vappie.

"Some months after The Scoundrel’s Wife, he called and asked if we wanted to film his family reunion, but we were in the middle of another project. In the process, we learned more about his talented family. Cousin Gwen had been a backup singer with Elvis, cousin Thaddeus had played with Paul McCartney's Wings, one cousin backed up Outkast, and cousin Plas is a studio musician who played with pretty much everyone. He played tenor sax in the themes from The Pink Panther and The Odd Couple,” Pitre said. “They are the best musicians you've never heard of."

Pitre said Hurricane Katrina had a profound effect on the course of the film.

"I think it's a very different film and I think it's a much more emotional film than it would have been. I think we managed the best of both worlds, because most of the cousins we were hoping to get to perform do indeed appear in the film. At the same time I think there's lots more resonance. It's at once more compelling, because of what it turned into, and at the same time I think, in a weird way, the hurricane has made it something that's going to tell people who never went through the hurricane more about their own lives than it would without the storm,” Pitre said. “It puts a spotlight on issues we all go through, not so abruptly, but we all have to face questions about how important our own heritage is. What are the steps we have to take to preserve it for future generations? How much of it are we willing to share with people who aren't part of the culture? They’re questions we all deal with whether we think about them or not. And I think this film makes us think about it in a way that we were always hoping it would, but that would not have been as strong if the storm had not become the catalyst."

The thought of abandoning his South Louisiana home after the storm never crossed his mind.
"I grew up in a place where the ground was literally washing away under us at the rate of an acre every 15 minutes. And I grew up in a place where most people spoke a dying language. It'll take more than a storm to chase me off,” Pitre said. “I'm not a good test case.”

Pitre said making this film and was both enjoyable and fulfilling.

“It was fun. The music was fun. Doing it when we did it, and therefore feeling like we were actually, in some small measure, contributing to recovery just by virtue of making the statement, of putting people to work, of spending money locally. That felt good.”