Former Ken Burns Intern Working on Homeless Soccer Doc

Memphis native Suzannah Herbert, who graduated from NYU's Tisch School in 2010, recently had the best possible homecoming. Her half-hour documentary Central Park: The Park at the Center of the World was given a series of July 21st-24th airings on local PBS outlet WKNO.

For her feature-length debut Home Game, currently in production, Herbert is venturing a little further afield of her Alma Mater to profile three homeless men who take part in a weekly soccer game at a Wards Island shelter. Her connection to New York is also rooted in the fact that she was born there, and spent her first two years in Manhattan before moving to the South.



The 23-year-old Herbert is a shining example of how much easier things can be when a person knows from an early age what they want to do professionally. In high school, she and a classmate made Art & Soul, a documentary about Memphis visual artists. Once she came to New York, she interned at the offices of non-fiction genre king Ken Burns and worked as an associate producer for music documentary focused outfit Jim Brown Productions.

Herbert's Central Park doc has won not one but two local Audience Awards at the 2010 Manhattan Film Festival and 2011 NYU First Run Film Festival. She is someone most definitely to keep an eye on in the coming months and years.

[Suzannah Herbert]