Press
Exclusive Interview – Filmmaker Louise Woehrle on her documentary A Binding Truth
APRIL 13, 2024 BY AMIE CRANSWICK
With her newest feature currently playing the festival circuit, we caught up with filmmaker Louise Woehrle to discuss her career and her new documentary A Binding Truth, which explores the dark legacy of slavery in the United States through complex familial history of two former high school classmates, one black and one white, after a shocking discovery revealed long-buried secrets that would change their lives forever.
INTERVIEW: LOUISE WOEHRLE, DIRECTOR OF ‘A BINDING TRUTH’
By WILL BJARNAR | April 17, 2024
Writer Will Bjarnar interviews Louise Woehrle, director of A Binding Truth. Will also reviewed the film here.
Will Bjarnar: How did you first come across Jimmie and De’s story?
Louise Woehrle: I was in New York screening my previous film, Stalag Luft III—One Man’s Story. My two cousins from Charlotte attended. My cousin Katie, who is married to De, one of the main subjects of the film, asked me what my next project might be. I said I really didn’t know but that I had a few ideas. She said, “What about the Jimmie Lee and De story?” I knew very little about their story at the time. I met Jimmie at Katie’s daughter’s wedding, and De told me how he and Jimmie got together and about the Charlotte Observer series about Jimmie back in 2013….
Louise Woehrle Shines a Light On Our Integral True Stories
"I believe we need more stories that help us see each other with more compassion, understanding, and acceptance," says Louise Woehrle, director of the new documentary 'A Binding Truth.'
The adage goes that the first step to solving any problem is recognizing there is one. This can be quite challenging to do, as acknowledging problems oftentimes comes with needing to face our fears, insecurities, and shame head-on. That is why we need brave filmmakers like Louise Woehrle, whose new documentary A Binding Truth shines a light on a vital story of two friends who learned of their shared family ancestry through their ancestor’s slaveholding roots…”
Louise Woehrle Delves Into Race, Healing, and Friendship in A Binding Truth
“Award-winning filmmaker Louise Woehrle is a storyteller and the owner of Whirlygig Productions, Inc., whose projects have found national and international broadcast and distribution. She is passionate about telling stories that help us see ourselves and others in new ways, promote healing, and connect us as human beings…”
Documentary reveals how two Charlotte men discovered an ugly past and confronted it
"The emotional journey of men at opposite ends of the racial spectrum immersed in a yearslong search for ancestral truths that connected them and gnawed at their spirits gripped the audience."
Local filmmaker’s ‘A Binding Truth’ to be featured at Twin Cities Film Fest
“I hope 'A Binding Truth' sets the table for conversation; up to this point, it seems to be doing that." - Director, Louise Woehrle
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“In a climate where social and racial conflicts abound, a story of healing and reconciliation is definitely what we need.”
A Binding Truth (Woehrle, 2023)
"It’s not so much that those who forget the past repeat it; it’s that those who never foreground the past forget what they already know."