Heather Courtney has spent the past two years working on the documentary “Los Trabajadores/ The Workers.” She recently received her MFA in film production from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to film school, Ms. Courtney spent eight years working for various refugee and immigrant rights organizations, ranging from a community-based Ethiopian refugee resettlement agency in suburban Virginia to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington, DC, from a United Nations research agency in Ethiopia to the International Rescue Committee in the Rwandan refugee camps at the Tanzania/Rwanda border. As an information officer, grant writer, and photographer for these organizations and on several independent projects, Ms. Courtney has written and photographed extensively on the stories of displaced populations. In addition to “Los Trabajadores,” Ms. Courtney has directed, produced, and photographed documentaries and educational videos for several organizations including a video shot in Romania for Casa Speranta, a home for abandoned HIV-positive children in Constanta, Romania; an educational video for Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera, about women organizing in the maquiladoras on the Texas/Mexico border; and a training video for the Political Asylum Project of Austin on legislation to help immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence. She has also directed several narrative short films, including “Everything Must Go” (15 min. narrative, 16 mm) about two women who work the all-night shift at the local dollar store, which is currently touring with the Texas Filmmakers Showcase.  She is currently working on the community and grassroots distribution of “Los Trabajadores/ The Workers” in Austin and the rest of Texas, and hopes to expand that to other states and cities.