American Experience Creates Official Documentary of Las Vegas Centennial

American Experience Creates Official Documentary of Las Vegas Centennial

BOSTON, April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- PBS's American Experience, produced at WGBH Boston, has been tapped to produce the official documentary of Las Vegas' centennial, celebrated this year. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Stephen Ives and his team at Insignia Films -- producer Amanda Pollak and writer Michelle Ferrari -- the primetime special will air on PBS in the fall of 2005.

"Las Vegas" is the latest entry in American Experience's award-winning anthology of city portraits, joining popular predecessors "New York: A Documentary Film" and "Chicago: City of the Century."

"There's something about Las Vegas that has captured the imagination of the world," says American Experience executive producer Mark Samels. "Gambling towns have been around for ages. But Las Vegas stands alone in its grandeur, its magnetism, its garishness. Las Vegas is a city, and an experience, that - - for better or for worse -- could exist only in America."

Components of this multimedia venture include: * "Las Vegas," a two-part documentary, cornerstone of American Experience's fall season * "Las Vegas: An Unconventional History," by Michelle Ferrari with Stephen Ives. This lavishly illustrated trade book from Bulfinch Press will be published in fall 2005. Ferrarri took home an Emmy for her writing on American Experience's "Seabiscuit," produced and directed by Ives. * A long-form radio production is in development for fall 2005 broadcast. * Home video and DVD through PBS Video.

WGBH partnered with Las Vegas's public television station KLVX to highlight the project with a gala kickoff event at PBS's Showcase, a gathering of station programmers and other representatives at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, on April 10.

Program funders Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and University of Nevada are teaming up for a red-carpet premiere at UNLV in September.

From its beginnings as a remote frontier waystation to its Depression-era incarnation as the "Gateway to the Hoover Dam," from its mid-century florescence as the gangster metropolis known as "Sin City" to its recent renaissance as the fastest growing city in the United States, the story of the last one hundred years of Las Vegas is a distinctly American saga of optimism and opportunity.

"Las Vegas has always found a way, chameleon-like, to prosper in the midst of the desert," comments Ives. "It's a city that has understood, better than any other over the last century, what Americans most want when they run away from home."

American Experience is produced at WGBH Boston. Major funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers. Sharon Grimberg is series producer. Mark Samels is executive producer.

Press contacts Daphne B. Noyes 617-300-5344 daphne_noyes@wgbh.org

Lauren Prestileo 617-300-5329 lauren_prestileo@wgbh.org

Source: WGBH Boston

CONTACT: Daphne B. Noyes, +1-617-300-5344, daphne_noyes@wgbh.org, or Lauren Prestileo, +1-617-300-5329, lauren_prestileo@wgbh.org both of WGBH

Web site: http://www.wgbh.org/

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