Director Demme brings a teen's face out of New Orleans' crowd

Jonathan Demme traveled to New Orleans to document the lives of residents still abandoned after Hurricane Katrina.

And he may have found a star.

While shooting this summer's PBS documentary Right to Return: New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward, about residents of the hardest-hit region of the city trying to rebuild on their own, he came upon Kyrah Julian, a particularly eloquent — and angry — teenager.

"She was talking about more than the power being off," Demme says. "She spoke about the ecological dangers, the personal losses. She was such a compelling image on camera."

So Demme cast Julian in next year's Dancing With Shiva, a family comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger.