Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini have been making films about cultures and political situations outside the U.S. for more than 30 years. For about half as long, they've been married and working together from their production company, The Epidavros Project, in New York City.

The pair have filmed matriarchs of extended families in Haryana State, India and young Khmer Rouge guerilla fighters in Western Cambodia, coca growers in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley and tribal elders in Kankan, Northeast Guinea. In every case, they've worked to understand and translate into films the life experience of a particular group of people for audiences in other places. In 2000, they completed their first US collaboration, an inside look at the American political asylum system which became their feature documentary, Well-Founded Fear.

In the summer of 2001, still in the United States, they began following the path of a think tank idea about the right way to achieve Comprehensive Immigration Reform, something that looked likely to become the law of the land within the year. It was a way into the most compelling and by far the most complex culture, and political situation, they've encountered so far. Almost a decade later, Epidavros is beginning to complete and premiere several of the films in the resulting project: TWELVE STORIES/ How Democracy Works Now. Michael + Shari desperately hope to be finished by the summer of 2011.

The Senators’ Bargain, a documentary feature about Senator Kennedy’s final 2007 fight to get the immigration reform bill passed, will premiere on HBO2 on March 24th at 8pm.

Learn more about the series here: http://www.howdemocracyworksnow.com.

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