Filmmaker Stillman's

Next Project: Poverty

In Otsego, Delaware

By LIBBY CUDMORE • Hometown Oneonta & The Freeman’s Journal

ONEONTA – Filmmaker Joe Stillman wants to open people’s eyes to what he calls “The Invisible Class.”

“In Otsego County, the poverty rate is 16.5 percent,” he said. “In Oneonta, it’s 29.5 percent. That’s one in three. These are our neighbors, friends, relatives and neighbors, people we play with, shop with and work with.”

Now, home from promoting an award-winning documentary on LBJ’s crusading Attorney General Ramsay Clark, Stillman wants to reveal “Faces of Poverty” in his next documentary.

“I want to put a face to the struggle of low-wage earners,” he said. “They’re making our food, washing dishes, waiting tables.  And we take them for granted.”

He’s interviewed Mayor Gary Herzig and Congressman  Antonio Delgado, D-19, as well the Catholic Charities and Opportunities For Otsego leadership.

He is collaborating on the film with Rev. Dana Horrell, husband of First United Methodist pastor Rev. Marti Swords-Horrell, and Jeri Wachter, a publisher in Gilbertsville.