Cajun Music Doc ROOTS OF FIRE Opens in Los Angeles September 21st

In Roots of Fire, five award-winning musicians honor the rich history and cultural legacy of Cajun music.

The Cajun contemporary scene in Louisiana has found mainstream success with Grammy nominations and wins, but shuttering venues and an aging fan base leave some questioning the music’s future.

With Wilson Savoy, Joel Savoy, Kelli Jones, Kristi Guillory, and Jourdan Thibodeaux lending their voices, the film is a celebration of the unique sounds created when the forces of fresh talent and deep history come together to fight for cultural survival.

Featuring electrifying performances from the Pine Leaf Boys, Feufollet,
Jourdan Thibodeaux et Les Rôdailleurs, Bonsoir Catin, T'Monde, Anna Laura Edmiston and Roddie Romero, the crowd-pleasing Roots of Fire shows how playing kick-ass music and preserving Cajun tradition for future generations can be a shared goal.

"Get ready to feel the blood rush into your perception of existence in the profound cajun music documentary Roots of Fire. The audience is in for a hurricane of fun – the music produces an unquenchable joy that is genuine and undeniable. Roots of Fire reminds me of Les Blank’s legendary documentaries...like Blank, the Lavois explore their subject with such passion it transcends the bounds of the specifics. The insights into life and existence are surprising and intense."
-Michael Talbot-Haynes, FILM THREAT

Filmmaker Biographies

Abby Berendt Lavoi (Director/Producer) is an award-winning Director, Writer, and Producer. She directed the multi-award-winning feature documentary Roots of Fire which earned the prestigious Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Documentary of the Year Award and screened at over 25 film festivals. She is currently in development on the sequel, and in production on an episodic spinoff series, Dry Bones. She was the Showrunner of the 12 episode half-hour unscripted streaming series, My Amazing Cheap Date: New Orleans. Her work has screened at over 30 festivals and has received awards and honors from the New Orleans Film Festival, Hot Springs Doc Fest, SIFF, SFIndieFest, Indie Memphis, the Telly Awards, Promax/BDA, and many others. Her TV staff credits include MTV, TVLand, Nick@Nite, Nickelodeon, and Current TV. In 2021, she won the Women in Film and Television’s Resilient Woman Award, and her screenplay, Saving Yourself, was a finalist in the WeScreenplay Feature Contest. Her series, It’s a Rough Life was a finalist in the 2014 NYTVF History Channel Unscripted Development Pipeline. Her team won Best Film at the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Festival in 2012, and in 2011 she won Best Editor at Mockfest for the film Rolled. At her video agency, Lavoi Creative, she has created content for Pandora, Google, Vox, Discovery, and more.

Jeremey Lavoi (Director/Producer) is an award-winning Director, Writer, and Cinematographer. His work has screened around the world on television and at over 30 film festivals. He directed the multi-award-winning feature documentary Roots of Fire. The film earned the prestigious Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Documentary of the Year Award for 2023, and a spinoff series called Dry Bones. He was the Showrunner of My Amazing Cheap Date: New Orleans for the Hearst property Very Local. He was on the Emmy Award winning team at Current TV in 2007 where he directed dozens of short documentaries on various topics including Skating the Aftermath, about New Orleans skateboarders in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He was editor of the documentary film Supercharged, the Life and Times of Tim Brauch. He was a Producer/ Editor on Whit Scott's mockumentary film Rolled, which received accolades at Mockfest in 2011. He was Director of Photography on Jennifer Newsom’s thought provoking documentary film The Great American Lie. At his video agency, Lavoi Creative, he has produced content for Google, Netflix, Vox, Discovery, COMPLEX, and others. In 2012 his team won Best Film at the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Festival. His web series It’s a Rough Life was a finalist for the 2014 NYTVF History Unscripted Development Pipeline. His additional television credits include Bravo, History Channel, Science Channel, MTV2, CNBC, Discovery Health, and TechTV/ G4.

Stephen Thorpe (Sound Producer) is a Bay-Area based audio engineer. He started his career doing live sound and recording concerts back in 2004. Music studio work introduced him to the world of video post-production and eventually he found himself traveling the country with video crews. In 2012 he founded Din Pan Alley, an audio services company and in 2015 started a sound design studio in uptown Oakland. He does field and post-production sound for networks including ABC, CNN, NATGEO and ESPN, records remotely for NPR and travels with reality-documentary shows.