American Masters — Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photographer’s Journey
Premieres nationwide Friday, September 18 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) during National Hispanic Heritage Month
Production Biographies
Raymond Telles
Director and Producer
Raymond Telles’ 35-year career in film and television includes the production of numerous documentaries and segments for PBS, ABC, NBC, National Geographic, Discovery and Univision. Among the more than 30 documentaries Telles has produced and directed are Inside the Body Trade (National Geographic); The Storm that Swept Mexico (PBS); The Fight in the Fields (PBS); Children of the Night (Frontline); and episode six of the PBS series Latino Americans.
Yvan Iturriaga
Director and Producer
Yvan Iturriaga began his filmmaking career in Los Angeles as a freelance producer and cameraman. He worked for major TV networks Telemundo and Univision and has shot various independent projects including AdCorp, Inc. and Danny Roane: First Time Director. Since migrating to the Bay Area in 2007, Iturriaga has directed and produced numerous short films, documentaries, commercials and music videos. Recent projects include The Storm That Swept Mexico, a two-hour PBS documentary on the Mexican Revolution, and episode six of the PBS series Latino Americans. Iturriaga also wrote and directed the narrative shorts Sui Generis and Beep, screened in over a dozen festivals worldwide.
Michael Kantor
American Masters Series Executive Producer
For more than two decades, award-winning filmmaker Michael Kantor has created outstanding arts programs for television. He joined American Masters as the series’ executive producer April 30, 2014.
His most recent PBS documentary series, Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, hosted by Liev Schreiber, premiered in fall 2013 and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Random House published the companion book. In January 2013, Kantor’s Peabody Award-winning, 90-minute film, Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy, aired as part of the Great Performances series on PBS. Narrated by Joel Grey, it included performances by Matthew Broderick, Kelli O’Hara, David Hyde Pierce, Marc Shaiman and many other Broadway talents. In 2012, Kantor produced The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater with Michael Tilson Thomas, which aired on PBS and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. Kantor served as executive producer of the 90-minute special Give Me the Banjo, hosted by Steve Martin, and created Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, the critically acclaimed six-part documentary series, hosted by Billy Crystal, that debuted in January 2009. His script for episode four, When I’m Bad, I’m Better: The Groundbreakers, co-authored with Laurence Maslon, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. His landmark six-part series Broadway: The American Musical was hosted by Julie Andrews and honored with the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series in 2005. That same year, he created three hours of DVD extras for 20th Century Fox’s 40th anniversary release of The Sound of Music.
Kantor wrote, directed and produced the award-winning profile American Masters: Quincy Jones: In the Pocket. With Stephen Ives, he co-directed Cornerstone: An Interstate Adventure for HBO, and produced The West (Executive Producer Ken Burns). His 20 years of work in documentaries include projects as varied as EGG: the arts show, Coney Island, The Donner Party, Margaret Sanger and Ric Burns’ New York series. As a writer, Kantor created Lullaby of Broadway: Opening Night on 42nd Street, co-authored the companion books to Broadway (Bulfinch) and Make ‘Em Laugh (Grand Central Publishing) and has published numerous essays and articles. He is president of Almo Inc., a company that distributes The American Film Theatre series, which includes Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance (starring Katharine Hepburn), Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh (Lee Marvin) and Chekhov’s Three Sisters (Laurence Olivier) among its titles. Kantor has served as a Tony nominator and teaches documentary filmmaking at the School for Visual Arts in New York City.
Sandie Viquez Pedlow
VOCES Executive Producer
Sandie Viquez Pedlow, Executive Director of Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), manages the operations of public media’s largest Latino-focused content developer and funder that provides programming to public television’s nearly 360 stations, multicast channels and other media platforms. Pedlow is the Executive Producer of VOCES on PBS, a series that celebrates the rich diversity of the Latino cultural experience. She was executive producer of Latino Americans which was honored with a George Foster Peabody Award and an IMAGEN Award.
Prior to LPB, Pedlow was Director, Station Relations, PBS Education, working in the marketing of online and digital media products. She was previously Director, Programming Strategies, and Associate Director of Cultural, Drama and Arts Programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., for 10 years. Pedlow began her career in public media as producer of arts and cultural programs at SC ETV. Pedlow serves on the Vme Programming Advisory Council and has served on the boards of CINE, American Documentary, American Playhouse, INPUT and LPB.
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