Tom Weidlinger Biography
Director, Co-Producer, and Co-Writer
Tom Weidlinger is an independent filmmaker who has been writing, directing and producing documentary
films for 30 years. Nineteen of his films have received national broadcasts on public television. Many have
won prestigious festival and industry awards, and are in educational distribution.
Weidlinger's work deals with a wide range of subjects, from the emotional development of boys in the United
States to humanitarian aid in the Congo. The themes of social justice and human relations run through his
films. Detailed information on recent works can be found at www.moiraproductions.com. See also
Weidlinger’s own statement about his approach to filmmaking.
For his most recent film Jim Thorpe, The World’s Greatest Athlete, Weidlinger teamed up with co-writer
Joseph Bruchac, the Abenaki author and storyteller. The film is a biography of the legendary Native
American athlete.
Other recent project include:

Swim for the River, (2007) about a man who swims the Hudson River, from its source in the
Adirondack Mountains to New York City to bring attention to environmental causes in the Hudson
River Valley.

Heart of the Congo, (2004) tells the story of aid workers helping refuges in a region devastated by
civil war, amid threats of violence, corruption, and a legacy of colonial dependency.

In A Dream in Hanoi (2002) Vietnamese and American actors endure the strains of cross-cultural
misunderstandings to mount a production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Nights Dream." In The
Heart of the Congo (2004) Weidlinger explores the dilemma of humanitarian aid workers trying to
help civil war refugees without creating a lasting dependency. In Boys Will Be Men, (2001)
Weidlinger examines the culture of bullying and toughness that many boys are inducted into at an
early age and suggests some effective alternatives for emotional growth.
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In 1987, Weidlinger formed Moira Productions, an independent production company, for the purpose of
developing and producing programs for public television. Moira's first production was The Great San
Francisco Earthquake, which was selected to premiere the celebrated PBS anthology series THE
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Moira's second film, for the second season of the series, was The Great War,
1918.
Weidlinger graduated from the Center for Advanced Film Studies of the American Film Institute in 1977. He
was awarded a William Benton Fellowship in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Chicago in 1993. He
has received writing fellowships and residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, the Ossabaw Island
Foundation, and the McDowell Colony. He has written two feature film screenplays and been commissioned
to write and develop numerous proposals and teleplays for public television.
Joseph Bruchac Biography
Film Co-Producer and Co-Writer
Joseph Bruchac is a traditional storyteller and writer whose work often reflects his Abenaki Indian ancestry
and his lifelong interest in American Indian history and culture. Winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award
from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas and Storyteller of the Year from the Wordcraft Circle of Native
Writers and Storytellers, his work has appeared in hundreds of publications from American Poetry Review to
National Geographic. The author of over 120 books for children and adults, his titles include JIM THORPE,
ORIGINAL ALL-AMERICAN, OUR STORIES REMEMBER (Fulcrum), and MARCH TOWARD THE
THUNDER (Dial).
Bruchac lives with his wife, Carol, in the Adirondack mountain foothills town of Greenfield Center, New York,
in the same house where his maternal grandparents raised him. Much of his writing draws on that land and
his Abenaki ancestry, which is part of an ethnic background that includes Slovak and English blood. He, his
younger sister Margaret, and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, continue to work extensively in projects
involving the preservation of Abenaki culture, language and traditional Native skills at their Ndakinna
Education Center. The Bruchacs have recorded together as The Dawn Land Singers and have performed
American Indian music at festivals and in concert throughout the United States, in Canada, and in several
European nations.
As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern
Woodlands, Joe has performed throughout the United States from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured
at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro,
Tennessee. He 's been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schools throughout
the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School. He discusses
Native culture and his books and does storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schools
each year as a visiting author. From 1973 to 1981, he directed a college program inside a maximum security
prison.
His hobbies include gardening and doing traditional American Indian crafts. A varsity wrestler at Cornell
University and a former high school and junior high school wrestling coach, he's also been a martial arts
teacher for more than thirty years, focussing in particular on Indonesian Pencak-silat.