Filmmaker John de Graaf has been creating documentaries for over forty years. An author, filmmaker, speaker, and activist, his mission is to help cultivate a happier, healthier, and more sustainable quality of life in America. His newest film, From Sea to Shining Sea, beautifully explores the life and legacy of poet Katharine Lee Bates, who gifted the nation with “America the Beautiful.” Recently screened on Vashon, the film is also available through the King County Library system.

Over the course of his distinguished career, John has received more than 100 regional, national, and international awards, including the highest honor for legal reporting from the American Bar Association. More than a dozen of his films have aired nationally in primetime on PBS, including his 1997 hit, Affluenza.

John is also the co-founder and president of Take Back Your Time, co-founder of the Happiness Alliance, former policy director of the Simplicity Forum, and the founder of the emerging organization Make America Beautiful Again.

You can learn more about his work at johndegraaf.com.

America the Beautiful (the earlier documentary) can also be rented or streamed through Bullfrog Films.

From the catalogue notes:

America the Beautiful may be America’s most beloved song. But few know about the fascinating life of the writer behind it: poet, long-time professor at Wellesley College and social reformer Katharine Lee Bates.

The first words of her poem America (later set to music and called America the Beautiful) came to Bates as she surveyed the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains from the broad summit of Colorado’s Pike’s Peak on July 22, 1893. Bates penned lyrics that reflect both a love for her country and a desire for reform. The song does not ignore the fact that the United States has often not lived up to its promises and ideals, yet it honors the unbroken chain of Americans who, living up to those ideals and loving their country deeply, strived to make it all it can be.