The film won the 2000 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In 2003, Harris wrote "Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives". He was nominated for outstanding writing for non-fiction writing for this documentary. As a documentary filmmaker, Harris casts his films carefully, talking to people beforehand and deciding who has an interesting story and who tells it well on camera. He also refuses to start filming immediately, but prefers to talk with the subjects for about an hour beforehand. He is currently the producer of a documentary called "With One Hand Tied", which is based on the book "Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II". Harris is also the author of various children's books, a side career he stumbled into the mid-1980s: he returned to journalism because he could not find funding for a documentary he wanted to make. After writing an article about a young child, he was contacted by an agent who asked him to write children's literature and has since written several children's books. Harris is currently a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California.