Susan Levitas
A folklorist by training, Susan Levitas has used documentary and feature films to capture unexpected facets of the cultural history of the American South, from blues musicians in Washington to Jewish boxers in Savannah. Levitas earned a BFA in acting from NYU and an MA in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked as a cultural consultant for the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other institutions before turning her hand to directing and producing films on the rich musical and cultural life of the South. Susan's first film, the 1996 documentary The Music District, shed light on the go-go, blues, and gospel music of Washington, DC. She followed this a year later with Dirty Rice, a feature film about a man returning to his Louisiana roots. Levitas herself moved from DC to New Orleans later that year. In 2003 she produced Shalom, Y'All, a documentary on the complex past and present of Jews in the American South. In 2007, Susan began doing voice-over work for commercials and promotions.
Susan describes her childhood in Atlanta, Georgia, and her roots as a folklorist. She talks about moving to New Orleans, where she met and married her husband, Jake Schwartz. Susan has a thirteen-year-old stepdaughter and was three months pregnant during Hurricane Katrina. She and her family evacuated before the storm, going to Atlanta to stay with Susan's parents. They ended up living with them for eight months. They did not prepare their rented home before the storm. Susan had boxes of field notes and personal belongings from her career as a folklorist. She put them on a shelf on the first floor. The home was flooded in seven feet of water, and all of her work was destroyed. She is still processing all that was lost in the flooding. She tells a great story about the support of the Atlanta Jewish community, her stepdaughter's bat mitzvah in Atlanta, and the decision to stay there after the storm. Susan was so inspired by the help she received from the local community that she began giving back as a board member of Rebecca's Tent, a women's shelter located at Congregation Shearith Israel in Atlanta.
