THE FIGHT FOR HOME

Daniel Wolff has spent the last four-and-a-half years visiting New Orleans documenting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of hours of research have resulted in THE FIGHT FOR HOME: an intimate and inspiring narrative about the stimulus and recovery of one disaster-stricken city.

In a sister film project, Daniel has co-produced the work-in-progress RIGHT TO RETURN with Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme. Tavis Smiley has dedicated a full week of his PBS show to this material, with another five nights scheduled to air in August 2010; a feature-length documentary about one New Orleans survivor is set to appear at the 2010 Venice Film Festival; and discussions for a reality television show based on the film's footage are underway. In THE FIGHT FOR HOME, Daniel follows three connected narratives. Pastor Mel, a former addict, is trying to rebuild both his own and his parents' ruined homes while running a growing mission for homeless ex-addicts. Over in Holy Cross, Caroline Parker and a few of her neighbors are essentially squatting on their own properties. Refusing to leave their devastated block, they grapple with little funds, a negligent government, and shady contractors in what appears to be a hopeless effort to return home. And elsewhere in the Ninth Ward, Common Ground has set up its headquarters as a self-described revolutionary organization seeking to build a new, egalitarian city. Common Ground is led by a former Black Panther whose follow volunteers including a dedicated black activist and a charismatic young white one are often in conflict. The book's narrative spans the last five years of recovery, exploring how the nation deals with disaster, when and how its citizens make it back, and what they make it back to: the new New Orleans. While there have been many books on Hurricane Katrina--its destruction and the politics surrounding it--no one has yet focused on recovery. Unlike Jed Horne's Breach of Faith, Dave Eggers' Zeitoun, and Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge, THE FIGHT FOR HOME is not about the hurricane, what went wrong during the storm, and who's to blame for it. It's about survival and resistance. What Daniel thought would be a simple story of refugees returning home has become a narrative about heroic Americans trying to rebuild their everyday lives. While it's colored by local details, THE FIGHT FOR HOME reveals some of the larger issues that the nation faces as we try to fashion our own recovery. It offers a chance to rethink and reshape our priorities and to hope. Daniel Wolff is the author of HOW LINCOLN LEARNED TO READ, an Editor's Choice at the Chicago Tribune, and hailed by The Boston Globe and Christian Science Monitor. His 4th OF JULY/ASBURY PARK was a NY Times editors' choice. He's written an award-winning biography of Sam Cooke YOU SEND ME has been nominated for a Grammy, and collaborated on a number of projects with the great African American photographer, Ernest Withers. Mr. Wolff was associate producer on Jonathan Demme's prize-winning documentary, "The Agronomist," and they are coproducing an ongoing documentary project about New Orleans, RIGHT TO RETURN. All of the footage filmed is available for use in future multimedia editions of THE FIGHT FOR HOME. THE FIGHT FOR HOME is an illuminating, modern-day pioneer tale about survival, long-term recovery, and a city's future.