A Lou Presti Uniquely New Jersey Summer Film Festival
On NJN Public Television
Sunday Nights at 11 pm

Statewide - Tune in to NJN Classics on Sunday nights at 11 pm in July and August for a special treat – the Presti Summer Film Festival. This special summer series features the work of award-winning filmmaker Louis Presti. For more than 35 years, Presti has traveled the Garden State, documenting its history and telling the stories of its exceptional people and extraordinary places. Presti will join host Marie DeNoia on the set to introduce each show and to discuss what goes into producing a program, including the challenges of working in film and some behind-the-scenes adventures. See Lou Presti’s biography below.

DeNoia is the perfect host for the Presti Summer Film Festival – she was born, raised, educated and works in New Jersey. Her career at NJN spans more than a decade during which she has won two Emmy awards for her reporting and producing, and has garnered four Emmy nominations. DeNoia is a reporter for NJN News, covering a variety of breaking and ongoing news stories, and fills in as anchor. This past year, she produced Seaside Story about the iconic shore town whose population swells to tens of thousands in the summer. Each of the programs in the Presti Summer Film Festival series are available for purchase from the NJN Store for $19.95 plus shipping and handling at www.njn.net or by calling (609) 777-0031.

July 2, Crossroads to Victory – Produced 1976
This documentary examines the Revolutionary War in New Jersey and the impact that the state of New Jersey played in the war. Incorporating a large cast of historic re-enactors, the program recounts the tale of Washington's army from the triumph of the Declaration of Independence through a series of bloody defeats and retreats across New Jersey, and onto the eventual triumph that would loosely cement New Jersey and the twelve other colonies into a more perfect union.

July 9, The Burg: A State of Mind – Produced 1980
Take a look at a "slice" of life in New Jersey known as Chambersburg. Affectionately called "the Burg," it is in fact a multi-ethnic district of Trenton with an Italian-American neighborhood at its center. The documentary focuses on this Italian-American core and examines its reason for existence as well as its unique qualities.

July 16, In the Barnegat Bay Tradition – Produced 1982
This documentary follows various local anthropologists as they research the traditions and culture of New Jersey's Barnegat Bay region. It looks closely at the timeless tradition of waterfowl hunting and shows how the Barnegat Bay Decoys and a unique boat called the Barnegat Bay Sneakbox are skillfully handcrafted and used.

July 23, Yankee Doodle’s Odyssey – Produced 1976
Yankee Doodle’s Odyssey documents the three-week musical trip of the Trenton State College Singers in 1976 as they traveled and sang their American Bicentennial celebration music to audiences throughout Russia and Romania and, in turn, were entertained by the people from the countries they visited.

July 30, On The Run – Produced 1988
This documentary examines the crisis of New Jersey’s runaway children by taking a frank look at what causes young people to leave home, and explores the culture of the runaway and the dangers of life on the street. Additionally, the program focuses on what can be done to reconcile runaways with their parents and what warning signs can signal the onset of a runaway episode.

August 6, Sea Bright Skiff
This show features the history of the Sea Bright Skiff that originated in the 1850s on the North Jersey shore. The skiff is used as a standard lifesaving boat as well as a recreational boat for sailing. Master boat builder Charles Hankins demonstrates how a Sea Bright Skiff is made.

August 13, Fare Ye Well Old House – Patterned Ended Houses of Salem County – Produced 1974
Take a look back at the history and heritage of Salem County, New Jersey, through the imaginative architecture imported by the region's first settlers. The show tours outstanding Georgian-styled patterned brick houses in Salem County while recounting some occasionally gruesome events that occurred within their walls.

August 20, Schooners on the Bay
Schooners on the Bay is a visual essay of the Delaware River Oyster Schooner, a boat used in the oyster harvesting businesses in New Jersey for over a hundred years. From sail power to motor driven, the schooner hulled boat worked the river, catching oysters and supplying the restaurants in the Philadelphia/New York area.

August 27, Famous Tiller Sharks – Produced 1976
This documentary covers the history, folk music and poems of the Old Morris Canal. Narrated by canal historian and lecturer James Lee, the program views the Canal from the perspective of the few remaining people who remember the workers plying their trade along its banks.

Louis J. Presti
Senior Producer, NJN Production Department

Senior producer/director Lou Presti has been with New Jersey Network since its early days in 1970 as head of the network’s motion picture unit. Since that time, Presti has been making compelling films about New Jersey’s natural landscapes and resources as well as the different communities that make up the Garden State. He became senior producer/director in 1974.

During his tenure at NJN, Presti and his team have documented New Jersey like few others before them, exploring New Jersey’s remote regions from the mountains of the northwest to the serenity of the Delaware Bayshore. Presti has earned numerous awards and recognition in his more than three decades with NJN. Most recently, he received The Cincinnati History Prize in recognition of his work in television by the Society of the Cincinnati of New Jersey. He also received the William Dwyer Award for History, recognizing his career commitment to bringing New Jersey history to the television screen. In 1984, Presti and his team earned NJN’s first Emmy Award for In the Barnegat Bay Tradition, a documentary about the folk traditions of duck decoy carving and sneakbox boating. That film was the first in an acclaimed trilogy on New Jersey boating that included Sea Bright Skiff and Schooners on the Bay.

Other Emmy Award-winning programs produced by Presti include On The Run, a look at runaway children; You, Me and Technology, a series of thirteen instructional programs focusing on man and technology; and Survival of Species: A Matter of Habitat, which examines the resurgence of the osprey, the falcon and the eagle in New Jersey. Presti also produced the acclaimed documentary, My Pine Barrens Land, a compelling portrait of the New Jersey Pinelands funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The film was distributed nationally and internationally and is one of NJN’s most widely distributed productions.

Presti has also produced many NJN productions that serve the educational needs of New Jersey students. With David Cohen of the NJ Historical Commission, he has produced the New Jersey Legacy series, ten half-hour programs that explore the history of New Jersey’s past; as well as NJN’s Around and About New Jersey series, which consists of eight short programs that educate students about New Jersey’s different regions. A curriculum on CD accompanies the NJ Legacy series. The series is available to schools and the general public.

Presti also produced the Emmy-Award winning Bear Country, New Jersey, which focuses on the state’s growing black bear population; and La Festa, which looks at the Italian-American street festivals still in place in Trenton and Brooklyn. Both programs aired in 1996 and were distributed nationally and internationally to PBS stations through American Program Service. In 1997, Presti produced Down Jersey, which explores South Jersey’s historic Delaware Bayshore.

Presti’s most recent productions include completion of the NJ Legacy series; Eye of the Mariner (New Jersey’s lighthouse) – which has been shown nationally on PBS over the past few years; Touring New Jersey – a scenic depiction of the state through four seasons set to music and NJN’s first exercise in high-definition production; and just this past year – Spirit of the Bay: Tuckerton Seaport about the state’s maritime traditions.

In 2004, Lou Presti completed the Thunderbolts of Millville – a moving documentary about the pilots – many of whom are in the film – who were trained on P-47s during World War II. A successful premiere in Cumberland County included many veterans who trained there, plus the documentary received extensive press coverage. The Thunderbolts of Millville has been picked up by American Public Television and will be distributed nationally to PBS stations this spring. 2005 will see at least two more programs by Presti – one program looks at the state’s Italian American heritage and the second presents the inspiring talent of Glen Rudderow, an artist who paints pastoral scenes of south Jersey. Both programs will be broadcast this spring on NJN.

With an eye to serving the residents of and visitors to New Jersey, NJN this year packaged many of Lou Presti’s documentaries into a two DVD set with four hours of programming – all with a focus on tourist or eco-tourist destinations in the Garden State. Along with the NJ Legacy series, the state now has a film package of its history and scenic locations of which to be proud.

Other Presti productions that have been distributed nationally include The Every Child Can Succeed series, The Great American Eating Machine series, It Figures series, You Me and Theology series, the World of the American Craftsmen series, Crossroads to Victory, The Superchiefs Go to Ireland, Deer Crossing, The 11th Year, The Berg: A State of Mind, In the Barnegat Bay Tradition, Yankee Doodles Odyssey, Classical Caravan and My Pine Barrens Land. Presti is a graduate of the University of Miami, where he earned a BA degree in radio, television and motion pictures. Prior to his tenure at NJN, Presti was a TV film instructor with the University of New Hampshire and produced films independently.

Lou Presti Documentaries