Walters, Ellen

Ellen Walters, filmmaker, teacher, and anthropologist of Laurinburg, N.C., has produced and directed several documentary films on southern culture.

A native of News Orleans, La., filmmaker Ellen Walters earned a B.A. cum laude in anthropology and sociology from Rhodes College, Memphis, Tenn., in 1982. In 1997, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in drama with a concentration in film and video from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Her first work produced in 16-mm film, jessica, won first place for Best Short Overall in the 1995 North Carolina Film and Video Festival in Raleigh, N.C., and was also selected for the Director's Choice Award at the 1997 Black Maria Film and Video Festival in New Jersey. Aunt Magg & Me, which aired on UNC-TV's North Carolina Visions in 1997, was featured at the New York Women's Film Festival and the Virginia Film Festival. Funded in part by a folklife documentation grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, her film The Firehouse Women: Faith, Food and Fellowship premiered 25 July 1998 on UNC-TV.

In addition to filmmaking, Ellen worked, 1987-1992, as an instructor at St. Andrews College in Laurinburg, N.C., in film studies, expository writing, and cultural anthropology. Walters serves as coordinator of the Film Studies Program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.