Executive Producers

Randy Fertel – Executive Producer
Energized by a passion for weaving ideas and people together, Randy Fertel is president of the Fertel Foundation, which supports projects related to the arts and education – especially those from which new communities and insights may emerge, and those that challenge entrenched communities of power. Among its other projects, the Foundation is a co-sponsor, with The Nation Institute, of the Ridenhour Prizes, which recognize annually with three $10,000 prizes those who tell truth to power. He is also president of The Ruth U. Fertel Foundation, which in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, awarded over a million dollars to New Orleans schools and educational initiatives. A specialist in the literature of the Vietnam War, he has taught English at the university level at Harvard, Tulane, LeMoyne College, the University of New Orleans, and The New School University in New York. He holds a PhD from Harvard, where he received a teaching award bestowed by student vote.

Alexa Georges – Executive Producer
Alexa Georges is a native New Orleanian who studied communications and international communications in Washington DC and now is the CEO of Alexa Georges Consulting, LLC. A cultural philanthropist, Alexa has been a major supporter of arts and culture in New Orleans through her involvement and fundraising efforts for various charitable organizations. She sits on the advisory boards of ARTDOCS, the New Orleans Film Society, and the William Faulkner Society. She co-founded the Sweet Art Katrina fund in 2006, a re-granting program for artists in the Gulf Coast region who were gravely affected by Hurricane Katrina. She was recently honored in New Orleans and New York in 2007 as a “Sweet Art” by the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans for her contribution to the recovery of New Orleans’ art and cultural scene, and by her work to draw international attention to the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

Executive Producer's Statement

Tootie’s Last Suit grew out of Lisa Katzman’s fascination with the Mardi Gras Indian culture of New Orleans and a growing concern for its survival. When I heard about her project, as a New Orleanian I knew I had to help make it happen.

Lisa Katzman is the visionary director and producer behind it. She worked for almost a decade learning about this culture and getting inside it. She’s from Chicago and New York but I learned 90% of what I now know about Mardi Gras Indians from her and from her film.
The culture is over 100 years old and it represents vestiges of African and Indian cultures that are timeless. It is a response to white oppression in general and to white Mardi Gras in particular. The film will make these complex themes clearer for you.

There are many pressures upon this culture that jeopardize its future. The usual suspects are to blame: poverty, racism, and the pressures of the dominant, mass culture. But as the film also makes clear, police violence is another factor. And of course Katrina magnified those problems to the point where this culture, this fully blown, fully articulated culture — that exists hidden in plain sight even to those who like me grew up around it — is in danger of being lost.

New Orleans needs eyeballs these days. It needs the attention of people who care about it. I think you will find that, with its ravishing images of Mardi Gras Indian costumes and rituals, this film is a good place to put your eyeballs for the time being. It will show you one aspect of New Orleans that is worth caring about and worth saving — and it stands in for many other unique aspects that together weave together the richness and diversity New Orleans is famed and beloved for.

And after you have seen Tootie's Last Suit, if we have succeeded in making you care a little more, then come to New Orleans. Come next February to Mardi Gras 2008 (Mardi Gras Day is February 5th) or to Jazz Fest (last weekend in April, first weekend in May), a party even greater perhaps than Mardi Gras. — Randy Fertel – Executive Producer

Randy Fertel – Executive Producer