Patti O. White is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and television producer. Cutting her teeth at CBS News in New York, White produced for CBS Reports and 60 Minutes, earning three national Emmy awards, a George Foster Peabody Award, three Cine Golden Eagles and two Cable Ace awards.

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Currently, White is producing and directing a feature-length documentary, Learning To Fly, focusing on the journey of the Black actor in America seen through the lens of an 89-year-old iconic drama professor who has taught some of the most celebrated Black actors on the screen over the past 50+ years.

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White’s past credits include writing, producing, and directing the award-winning feature- length documentary, If I Could, narrated by Sally Field. The production follows an at-risk teen whose mother was featured as a troubled kid, 20 years earlier, in White’s “CBS Reports” film, The Wagon Train Trial. White also wrote and produced the award-winning doc, America at Risk: Seeds of Hope for Turner Broadcasting and the Tribune Co., focusing on an abandoned generation of youth, drug and alcohol abuse, and the breakdown of the American family. She also produced and directed two wildlife films for TBS’s Wildlife Adventure Series, Survival of the Yellowstone Wolves and The Great Bison Chase.

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White is the Co-Founder and Principal at FILMSTERS, a production and development company, operating in Annapolis, Maryland and Los Angeles. White’s credits have appeared on CBS, ABC, Lifetime, Discovery, Turner, and others, and is known for producing and directing feature-length documentaries and producing a docu-reality series -ABC’s Extreme Makeover as a Producer & Senior Producer. FILMSTERS also develops concepts for scripted TV and true stories to film. As a storyteller (also a member of the WGAE), she is drawn to stories on the human predicament.

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Her latest short film, which she directed and produced, Don’t Hold Your Breath, was screened at select film festivals and is now being distributed by the YWCA and Red Cross. The film is an emotional story about a young man who nearly succumbs to a Shallow Water Blackout in a swimming pool surrounded by his entire family.​

 

FILMSTERS production company credits also include the 2013 indie feature film, Jamesy Boy, starring James Woods, Mary Louise Parker, and Ving Rhames. White is also one of the Executive Producers of the 2016 short documentary, Revolving Doors, which explores the cycles of incarceration and re-offending for non-violent convicted felons.

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In 2002, White created and co-founded FILMSTERS Academy, along with her producing partner, Lee Anderson, a hands-on experiential summer program for youth between the ages of 11-18 that teaches the art of filmmaking now in its 25th year. She is also the Co-Founder and Festival Director with Anderson, of the Annapolis Film Festival, now in its 14th year.