Heather Courtney is a documentary filmmaker, videographer and photographer based in Austin, Texas. Her documentary LOS TRABAJADORES/ THE WORKERS, which she produced, directed and edited, has screened at over 40 national and international venues, as well as at countless grassroots screenings in conjunction with immigrant rights groups all over Texas. It has won numerous awards, including the International Documentary Association's David Wolper Award, and the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2001. LOS TRABAJADORES was her thesis film at the University of Texas at Austin, where she received her MFA in Film Production in December 2000. She has received grants from the Texas Council for the Humanities, the Austin Arts Commission and the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund. She has been nominated twice for a Rockefeller Film/Video Fellowship, and in 2002 received a Fulbright fellowship to Mexico to begin research and production on her latest documentary LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE.

In addition to LOS TRABAJADORES, Heather has directed, produced, and photographed documentaries and educational videos for several social justice organizations, including a short documentary shot in Romania on a home for abandoned HIV-positive children, and an educational video for Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera, about women organizing in the maquiladoras on the Texas/Mexico border. In September and October 2003, Heather was a cinematographer and co-director on a project documenting the historic Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride.

Prior to film school, Heather spent eight years working for various refugee and immigrant rights organizations, including the International Rescue Committee in the Rwandan refugee camps after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. She also worked for the United Nations in Ethiopia and for the Washington office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. As an information officer, grant writer, and photographer for these organizations and on several independent projects, Heather has written and photographed extensively on human rights issues.

Heather is currently in the final stages of production and early stages of post-production on LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE, a documentary that tells the other side of the immigration story, the story of the families and communities left behind in rural Mexico.