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.

"The War" Captures 7.3 Million Viewers

"The premiere of Ken Burns' new documentary series "The War" brought in 7.3 million viewers Sunday night, PBS said.

The first episode of the multipart documentary averaged a 5.0 household rating/7 share in the top 56 "metered" markets, according to preliminary estimates released Monday by Nielsen Media Research.

That is on par with the opener of Burns' 1994 highly rated documentary series for PBS' "Baseball," which had a 5.1 household rating. (The 1990 premiere of Burns' "The Civil War" brought in a 9.0 rating.)" |Read more|