Academy Award® winning documentary director and cinematographer Cynthia Wade Joins Black Bag Warriors.

"Black Bag Warriors" is the multimedia series about LMU-DCOM (Harrogate, TN) medical students/doctors making house calls in Appalachia! (www.rampitupentertainment.com)

Dennis Gelbaum, Executive Producer adds: “The focus of our series will be on our fourth-year osteopathic medical students at LMU-DCOM as they make their rounds in the heart of Appalachia, providing a glimpse of a world of poverty, pride and persistence most of us have never seen. They will go house to house in some of the most underserved rural parts of America, providing the best patient care they can provide under these less than ideal circumstances and learning what healing is all about.”

Cynthia Wade comments: "I am delighted to see that you are developing “Black Bag Warriors” as a potential series. “Black Bag Warriors” makes for great viewing as the content deftly embraces high drama situations, presents strong and likeable characters, delivers unrestricted access into the little-examined world of rural Appalachia, and a provides a continuing look at our country’s health care crisis. This series can educate, entertain and impact millions of viewers on television and/or the web. It is an intelligent concept that defies the tired current “reality entertainment” model, and has the potential to affect thousands of hearts and minds in a very real and concrete way. I am honored that you have approached me with the opportunity to be creatively attached to this project. As a seasoned documentary director with extensive experience in delivering hard-hitting stories for large audiences, this concept appeals to me as it has all of the right elements to be a successful series."

About Cynthia Wade: Cynthia Wade is an Oscar-winning documentary director. Her newest documentary Born Sweet, about a Cambodian village poisoned by arsenic-laced well water, received an Honorable Mention at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and is currently on the film festival circuit. Wade recently directed the feature-length documentary Living the Legacy: The Untold Story of Milton Hershey School, which is currently airing on the IFC and Sundance Channels.

Wade’s short documentary Freeheld won an Academy Award®, a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and 16 other film festival awards worldwide. Wade also directed and shot the five-time award-winning HBO documentary Shelter Dogs, which was broadcast in seven countries, as well as the 1999 Cinemax Reel Life documentary Grist For The Mill, which The Hollywood Reporter called "a delight...full of quirky moments and clever humor" and Variety called "a jewel...extremely comical."

Wade was co-producer and the principal verite cinematographer for the 1998 PBS documentary Taken In: The Lives of America's Foster Children, which was awarded a Columbia-DuPont Award for Excellence in Journalism. She has been cameraperson for PBS, HBO/Cinemax, Bravo, AMC, MTV, A&E, Discovery, TNT, Oxygen, LOGO, and The History Channel.

Wade's corporate clients have included Intel, the Gap, Met Life, and Goldman Sachs. She has directed commissioned documentaries for the National Guard Youth Foundation, Job Corps, Yale University and Phoenix Children's Hospital, among other non-profit clients.

Cynthia Wade
Academy Award © Winner, 2007, Best Documentary Short Subject
Winner of 38 Film Awards (as director)
Director of HBO, Cinemax, Sundance Channel, IFC Channel specials
www.cynthiawade.com
www.freeheld.com
www.bornsweetfilm.com
www.shelterdogs.org