Parlee, Lorena, 1945-2006

Lorena May Parlee, born December 12, 1945, died August 18, 2006. Historian, filmmaker, producer, director, historical consultant, educator, author, and trade unionist. Founder of Sol Films and Reel View Productions. Winner of an Emmy, a CINE Golden Eagle, a Golden Mike, and an American Film Festival Blue Ribbon for Best Documentary for her work on Ballad of an Unsung Hero (1983), and was nominated for an Academy Award (Feature-Length Documentary) for her work In the Name of the People (1984). Producer, Director, and writer of the IMAX film Mexico (1995), and the first woman to direct an IMAX film. Press secretary to Cesar Chavez, founder and president of the United Farm Workers of America.

Biography

Documentary filmmaker Lorena Parlee died Aug. 18 after an extended illness. She was 61. Parlee was producer, director, and co-writer of the feature-length IMAX film "Mexico," an award-winner at San Jose's Cinequest Maverick Film Festival. Before working in film, Dr. Parlee was a Professor of Mexican and Chicano History at the University of California's Santa Barbara and Irvine campuses and press secretary to Cesar Chavez. In 1986 she produced, directed, and wrote "The Wrath of Grapes," an advocacy video for the United Farm Workers of America. She co-produced "Concerto for the Earth," a large-format Showscan 3D film, which was shown at the 1992 World's Fair Environmental Pavilion in Seville, Spain. Parlee was president of Sol Films, a 70mm large-format production company and of Reel View Productions, an archival and stock film research company for documentaries, feature films and commercials. At the time of her death she was a editing a feature length film about Chavez.