Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/832212
59 Q2 2017 / CINEMONTAGE her or his career, or an assistant editor or editor with fewer than 60 months of credits. Those accepted are paired with mentors for six months to one year for support through a combination of craft and work experience sharing, as well as social gatherings. Lillian credits Oscar- nominated documentary cinematographer/ producer/director/writer Jon Else as her major industry mentor. Their friendship dates to the Blackside days, when he was one of the Eyes on the Prize producers, and she edited his A Job at Ford's (1993), part of Blackside's The Great Depression series. She also edited the "Ride of the Valkyries" montage in Else's Sundance Filmmaker Trophy Award-winning documentary Sing Faster: The Stagehand's Ring Cycle (1999). Of Else, Lillian says, "He can give you tough, insightful feedback or advice, and you will take it because he also knows how to genuinely praise your work. Jon is one of those rare directors who knows the value of the editor. Plus, he is smart and kind." Sing Faster weaves a fascinating and funny fabric of labor issues and high art. In under 60 minutes, it tells the behind-the-curtains story of the San Francisco Opera union stagehands as they rehearse and put on Richard Wagner's 17-hour opus, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Else returns the praise, writing, "Over the years, up close and from a distance, I have marveled as she kept her hand on the editorial tiller when all the rest of the production team were coming unglued. But she was never distant, detached or cool to the material. Nerves of steel, heart of gold." Love of music is a consistent theme in Lillian's life and career, one she has explored for decades. She collaborated with Zeinabu irene Davis (who presented her with the Fellowship and Service Award) as writer and editor of Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant (2003), about the Black female West Coast Jazz trumpeter who, among other achievements, was the first American female jazz musician to play in the Soviet Union. Lillian's multiple projects with dancer/actress/ producer/director Debbie Allen include Hot Chocolate Nutcracker (2012), a television version of Allen's original interpretation of the classic story, and the biographical film Life is Not a Fairy Tale: The Fantasia Barrino Story (2006), about a teenage single Opposite, clockwise from top: Lillian Benson with editor Ralph Winters at his home in LA in 1995 as part of the ACE Oral History project. Lillian Benson with then- assistant editor Saleem Aziz at the 2009 Pan African Film Festival. Lillian Benson, second from right, with her Lifetime Achievement Award from the Black Hollywood Education and Research Center at the January 2017 awards ceremo- ny in LA. With her are actress/ producer/ceremony emcee Wendy Raquel Robinson, left, BHERC Founder Sandra Evers- Manly and fellow honoree producer/director Preston Holmes. Photo by Oscar Rene Lozoya Lillian Benson flanked by editors Sandra Christie and Bob Eisenhardt at EditFest NY in 2010. This page, clockwise from top: Lillian Benson, front row second from right, on the set of the film she wrote, directed and produced, All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11 (2004), with, from left, front row, co-producer/co-writer Shannon Gee, Fannie Cherry (mother of Lt. Vernon Cherry, who died at the Word Trade Center), cinematographer/ co-producer Joe Staton; back row, line producer Booker T. Mattison, Fire Department of New York Captain Paul Washington, and producer Craig Kelly of the Bridgeport Fire Department. Lillian Benson, left, with editor Tina Hirsch at an Alliance of Women Editors event in 2015. Lillian Benson with editor Randy Roberts at the ACE Ed- dies Nominees Party in 2003.