About Us
Llewellyn Smith (President) has contributed to many of PBS’ premiere television series since 1978, including Eyes on the Prize, From Jump Street, and Africans in America. Llew was Series Editor for American Experience at WGBH/Boston from 1988-1995. Credits as director/producer include Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory; Reconstruction: The Second Civil War and Forgotten Genius: Percy Julian for NOVA. In 2001 he produced The House We Live In for the series Race: The Power of An Illusion.
Llew founded Vital Pictures in 2005. He co-executive produced (with California Newsreel) the company’s first production, the award-winning, four-part Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? For PBS. Unnatural Causes won the 2009 DuPont Columbia award, the National Academy of Sciences Best Television Program of the Year Award and many other awards. He is was producer/director for Herskovits At the Heart of Blackness, the company’s second production,and is directing Voices From An American Dilemma and other Vital Productions. Llew has a BA in African History from Carleton College.
“Our business is to challenge viewers,” says Llew, “and to do that effectively, we have to challenge ourselves. We try to see each film as a brand-new laboratory, where we can push narrative concepts and ideas to the edge, at the same time challenging viewers to reconsider what they think they know about their world.”
Christine Herbes-Sommers (Vice President) has produced over 100 hours of documentary, dramatic and educational programming for PBS since 1976. Her film Joan Robinson: One Woman’s Story won the Dupont Columbia Award in 1981, and her work over the years has garnered many other awards.
She partnered with Llew Smith at Vital Pictures to develop and produce, with California Newsreel, the four-part series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? and was executive producer for the award-winning documentary Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness. She is currently Executive Producer for An American Dilemma, and spearheading the Coming of Age in an Aging America project. She and Llew were also producers for the groundbreaking series Race: The Power of An Illusion in 2001. Prior to Vital Pictures, Christine was a staff producer at WGBH/Boston and at The Big Picture Company in Rhode Island where she created innovative programming for schools nationwide. She has a BA in Political Science from Knox College and a MA from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy.
“Even in this challenging, unpredictable social and economic environment,” says Christine, “people are curious about ideas. They’re attracted to media that explores concepts in new provocative ways without ‘dumbing down’. We couldn’t be luckier in working with such a superb staff and such exciting stories.”
Wendy Riseborough joined Vital Pictures in 2006 as coordinating producer for the PBS series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? and for Herskovits At The Heart of Blackness. She began her production career at WGBH/Boston with Christine Herbes-Sommers on the series Connect With English. She worked in Los Angeles and New York for ten years as a line producer, production manager and coordinator for numerous feature films and television shows. Wendy was co-producer of the feature documentary Show Business: The Road to Broadway, nominated for best documentary by the Independent Documentary Association, and she production managed the Sundance Grand Jury award winner Chuck & Buck. She is co-producer for Vital Pictures’ documentary on national service, and coordinating producer for the company’s new PBS series on how aging will affect American society. Wendy has a BA from Wesleyan University.
Kelly Thomson is co-producer for the Vital Pictures’ productions of American Dilemma, An Awakened Heart and Gaining Ground. She is also co-director/producer of a feature documentary on the life and work of controversial anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. Kelly joined Vital Pictures as Series Associate Producer for Unnatural Causes and was Associate Producer for Herskovits At the Heart of Blackness. Prior to working with Vital Pictures, she was head of production for 50 Lessons, where she produced a series of over 30 portraits of leading business professionals. She was also Program Associate for Scenarios USA, a non-profit production company that partners under-served teens with award-winning filmmakers to produce stories around sexuality and health. Kelly has contributed to independent films and shorts, including Untamed, Hotels 4, All Falls Down, Milk, A Vote for Choice and Funeral of the Last Gypsy King. Kelly has a BA in Religious Studies from New York University.
Dakin Henderson is Production Assistant for all of Vital Pictures’ projects. He’s a young filmmaker whose short documentary Bishop’s Castle won the Colorado College Lewis Award for Student Film of the Year 2008; the film has screened at the Ivy Film Festival at Brown University, the Indie-Spirit Film Festival in Colorado Springs, and won Best Documentary at the Colorado College Film Festival 2008. His other films have won awards at the Shoot Out Boulder competition and the Ecological Society of America EcoFilm Festival. He is co-producer in association with Vital Pictures for What Time Is Left, a personal story of how three generations in his family are coping with the process of their loved elders growing old and dying.