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Michael Francis Moore was born in Flint, Michigan on April 23, 1954, and was raised in its Davison suburb. He is the son of Helen Veronica (Wall), a secretary, and Francis Richard Moore, who worked on an auto assembly line. He has Irish, as well as English and Scottish, ancestry.
Moore studied journalism at the University of Michigan-Flint, and also pursued other hobbies such as gun shooting, for which he even won a competition. Michael began his journalistic career writing for the school newspaper "The Michigan Times," and after dropping out of college briefly worked as editor for "Mother Jones."
He then turned to filmmaking, and to earn the money for the budget of his first film Roger & Me (1989) he ran neighborhood bingo games. The success of this film launched his career as one of America's best-known and most controversial documentarians. He has produced a string of documentary films and TV series predominantly about the same subject: attacks on corrupt politicians and greedy business corporations. He landed his first big hit with Bowling for Columbine (2002) about the bad points of the right to bear arms in America, which earned him an Oscar and a big reputation. He then shook the world with his even bigger hit Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), making fun of President George W. Bush. This is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. Michael is known for having the guts to give his opinion in public, which not many people are courageous enough to do, and for that is respected by many.- Director
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Robert J. Flaherty was born on 16 February 1884 in Iron Mountain, Michigan, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Louisiana Story (1948), Man of Aran (1934) and Elephant Boy (1937). He was married to Frances H. Flaherty. He died on 23 July 1951 in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA.- Producer
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Leni Riefenstahl's show-biz experience began with an experiment: she wanted to know what it felt like to dance on the stage. Success as a dancer gave way to film acting when she attracted the attention of film director Arnold Fanck, subsequently starring in some of his mountaineering pictures. With Fanck as her mentor, Riefenstahl began directing films.
Her penchant for artistic work earned her acclaim and awards for her films across Europe. It was her work on Triumph of the Will (1935), a documentary commissioned by the Nazi government about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, that would come back to haunt her after the atrocities of World War II. Despite her protests to the contrary, Riefenstahl was considered an intricate part of the Third Reich's propaganda machine. Condemned by the international community, she did not make another movie for over 50 years.- Director
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A former photographer, he turned to directing short subjects in the late 40s, soon acquiring an international reputation for the poetic quality of his short and medium-length films involving the fantasy world of children. Both his White Mane (1953) and The Red Balloon (1956) received a grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the latter also winning an American Academy Award. In the early 60s he turned to feature length films with considerably less success, then retreated to documentary shorts. He was killed in a helicopter crash while shooting a documentary near Teheran. That film, The Lovers' Wind (1978), a visually stunning helicopter tour of Iran, was later edited from his notes and was nominated for an Oscar as best feature documentary for the Academy Award ceremonies of 1979.- Director
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Adam Curtis was born on 26 May 1955 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for The Power of Nightmares (2004), Pandora's Box (1992) and HyperNormalisation (2016).- Producer
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Celebrated American documentarian who gradually amassed a considerable reputation and a devoted audience with a series of reassuringly traditional meditations on Americana. Burns' works are treasure troves of archival materials; he skillfully utilizes period music and footage, photographs, periodicals and ordinary people's correspondence, the latter often movingly read by seasoned professional actors in a deliberate attempt to get away from a "Great Man" approach to history. Like most non-fiction filmmakers, Burns wears many hats on his projects, often serving as writer, cinematographer, editor and music director in addition to producing and directing. He achieved his apotheosis with The Civil War (1990), a phenomenally popular 11-hour documentary that won two Emmys and broke all previous ratings records for public TV. The series' companion coffee table book--priced at a hefty $50--sold more than 700,000 copies. The audio version, narrated by Burns, was also a major best-seller. In the final accounting, "The Civil War" became the first documentary to gross over $100 million. Not surprisingly, it has become perennial fund-raising programming for public TV stations around the country. Burns arrived upon the scene with the Oscar-nominated Brooklyn Bridge (1981), a nostalgic chronicle of the construction of the fabled edifice. The film was more widely seen when rebroadcast on PBS the following year. Though Burns has made other nonfiction films for theatrical release, notably an acclaimed and ambiguous portrait of Depression-era Louisiana governor Huey Long (1985), PBS would prove to be his true home. He cast a probing eye on such American subjects as The Statue of Liberty (1985), The Congress (1989) (PBS), painter Thomas Hart Benton (1989) (PBS) and early radio with Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991) (PBS). Burns returned to long-form documentary with his most ambitious project to date, an 18-hour history of Baseball (1994), which aired on PBS in the fall of 1994. He approached the national pastime as a template for understanding changes in modern American society. Ironically, this was the only baseball on the air at the time, as the players and owners were embroiled in a bitter strike.- Director
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Joris Ivens was born on 18 November 1898 in Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands. He was a director and writer, known for La Seine a rencontré Paris (1957), The Mistral (1966) and A Tale of the Wind (1988). He was married to Marceline Loridan Ivens, Helen van Dongen and Germaine Krull. He died on 28 June 1989 in Paris, France.- Director
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Marcel Ophuls (actually Marcel Oppenheimer) is the son of the famous German film maker Max Ophüls. He spent his formative years in Hollywood, briefly served with a U.S. Army theatrical unit in Japan in 1946 and then attended the University of California, Berkely. In 1950, already a naturalized French citizen since 1938, he moved to Paris to study philosophy at the Sorbonne. He dropped out, however, once the opportunity arose to work in the film industry as an assistant to Anatole Litvak and Julien Duvivier. After collaborating on his father's film Lola Montès (1955), Ophuls met the French actress Jeanne Moreau who agreed to put up the money for his own project, the detective comedy Banana Peel (1963), a Franco-Italian-German co-production, starring Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo. It was aptly described by a reviewer as "a cheerful and inventive film with some inspired dialogue". His next venture, the thriller Faites vos jeux, mesdames (1965), was rather less successful.
Ophuls then worked for three years on The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), a controversial documentary which criticised French collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II. A further anti-war documentary, The Memory of Justice (1976), ran into legal problems and bankrupted Ophuls. After a four year hiatus, much of it spent on the lecture circuit, he resumed making documentaries and won an Academy Award for Hôtel Terminus (1988), the story of Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, from innocent childhood to war criminal. Ophuls has served on the board of the French Filmmakers Society. His more recent documentaries have examined investigative journalism and the impact of Germany's reunification.- Writer
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Chris Marker was born on 29 July 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on 29 July 2012 in Paris, France.- Director
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Yann Arthus-Bertrand was born on 13 March 1946 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for Human (2015), Woman (2019) and Legacy, notre héritage (2021).- Producer
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Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac (Gironde) in France. He entered the naval academy in 1930, was graduated and became a gunnery officer. Then, while he was training to be a pilot, a serious car accident ended his aviation career. In order to rehabilitate his body, he was told to swim regularly in the Mediterranean. In 1936, near the port of Toulon, he went swimming underwater with goggles for the first time and his life was changed forever. Seeking a way to explore underwater longer than a single lung-full of air would allow, he partnered with an engineer Emile Gagnan to co-invent the Aqualung, what became known as Scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) in 1943, and the world was changed forever. Now, for the first time, people could explore the ocean freely. After World War II, Cousteau, along with naval officer Philippe Tailliez and diver Frédéric Dumas, became known as the " mousquemers " (musketeers of the sea) as they carried out diving experiments. In 1950, he converted a former wooden hulled minesweeper called Calypso into an oceanographic vessel, equipped with instruments for diving and scientific research. In 1953 Jacques released a book called The Silent World. Three years later in 1956, Jacques along with his co-director, a young Louis Malle, turned the book into a film also called The Silent World. It was a global phenomenon winning a Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956 and an Academy Award that same year as well. In 1964 he won his second Academy Award with the film World Without Sun. In 1968, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was launched on ABC in the United States and became a worldwide sensation. Through more than 115 television films and 50 books, Captain Cousteau opened up the wonder and mystery of the oceans to millions of households. During this time he was joined by his youngest son Philippe Cousteau Sr. who went on to direct, produce and film 26 episodes of the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau as well as his own 6-part series Oasis in Space. Throughout his career, Jacques received numerous honors and awards for his work. On April 19, 1961, President John F. Kennedy presented the National Geographic Society's Gold Medal to Captain Jacques Cousteau. He was also recognized as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for his service in the French Résistance during WWII. He was the Director of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco for thirty years as well as a member of the US Academy of Sciences. In 1977, the United Nations awarded him the International Environmental Prize. He received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985. Then, in 1988, he was inscribed in the UN Environmental Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honor of Environmental Protection and received the National Geographic Society's Centennial Award. Then in 1989 he was elected to the Académie Française. In 1990 he launched a worldwide petition campaign to save Antarctica from mineral exploitation. His effort was successful when nations from around the world agreed to the protection of Antarctica from all exploitation. Captain Cousteau died on June 25, 1997, at the age of 87- Producer
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Louis Lumière was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema. His parents were Antoine Lumière, a photographer and painter, and Jeanne Joséphine Costille Lumière, who were married in 1861 and moved to Besançon, setting up a small photographic portrait studio. Here were born Auguste Lumière, Louis and their daughter Jeanne. They moved to Lyon in 1870, where their two other daughters were born: Mélina and Francine. Auguste and Louis both attended La Martiniere, the largest technical school in Lyon. At age 17, Louis invented a new process for film development using a dry plate. This process was significantly successful for the family business, permitting the opening of a new factory with an eventual production of 15 million plates per year. In 1894, his father, Antoine Lumière, attended an exhibition of Edison's Kinetoscope in Paris. Upon his return to Lyon, he showed his sons a length of film he had received from one of Edison's concessionaires; he also told them they should try to develop a cheaper alternative to the peephole film-viewing device and its bulky camera counterpart, the Kinetograph. This inspired brothers Auguste and Louis to work on a way to project film onto a screen, where many people could view it at the same time. By early 1895 they invented a device which they called the Cinématographe, a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures, and patented it on 13 February 1895. Their screening of a single film, Leaving the Factory (1895), on 22 March 1895 for around 200 members of the Society for the Development of the National Industry in Paris was probably the first presentation of projected film. Their first commercial public screening at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris on 28 December 1895 for around 40 paying visitors and invited relations has traditionally been regarded as the birth of cinema. The cinematographe was an immediate hit, and its influence was colossal. Within just two years, the Lumière catalogue included well over a thousand films, all of them single-shot efforts running under a minute, and many photographed by cameramen sent to various exotic locations. The Lumière brothers saw film as a novelty and had withdrawn from the film business by 1905. The Lumière freres' cinematographer was not their only invention. Mainly Louis is also credited with the birth of color photograph, the Autochromes, using a single exposure trichromic basis (instead of a long three-step exposure): a glass plaque is varnished and embedded with potato starch tinted in the three basic colors (rouge-orange, green and violet-blue), vegetal coal dust to fill the interstices and a black-and-white photographic emulsion layer to capture light. They were the main and more successful procedure for obtaining color photographs from 1903 to 1935, when Kodachrome, then Agfacolor and other less fragile film based procedures took over. An Autochrome is positivated from the same plaque, so they are unique images with a soft toned palette. As the Institut Lumière describes them, they are a middle point between photography and painting (akin specially to pointillism technique), because of their pastel shades and easy but still static pose looks.- Director
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Alfred Machin started his film work as camera man for Pathe at the beginning of 20 Century. During 1907 and 1909 he was in Africa, shooting documentary shorts. In 1910 he worked at the Pathe studio in Nizza, in 1911 he was one of the founding directors of the Pathe-filiale in Amsterdam, in 1913 he was the same in Brussel. In 1913/14 he made the pazifistic Maudite Soit la Guerre, which was released two months before the outbreak of WW I. In 1921 he purchased the Pathe studio in Nizza, founded his own production company and made nine pictures, before he died in 1929.- Writer
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Guy Debord was born on 28 December 1931 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (1978), Howlings in Favour of De Sade (1952) and Fuerza nueva: Canción para los obreros de Seat (2019). He was married to Alice Becker-Ho and Michele Bernstein. He died on 30 November 1994 in Bellevue-la-Montagne, Auvergne, France.- Producer
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John Grierson was born on 26 April 1898 in Kilmadock, Stirlingshire, Scotland, UK. He was a producer and writer, known for Drifters (1929), Child's Play (1954) and Brandy for the Parson (1952). He was married to Margaret Grierson. He died on 19 February 1972 in Bath, Somerset, England, UK.- Director
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Born in Brazil in 1897, Alberto Cavalcanti began his film career in France in 1920, working as writer, art director and director. He directed the avant-garde documentary Nothing But Time (1926) ("Nothing but Time"), a portrait of the lives of Parisian workers in a single day. He moved to England in 1933 to join the GPO Film Unit under John Grierson, working as a sound engineer (Night Mail (1936)) then as a producer. He went to work for Ealing Studios during the war, initially as head of Michael Balcon's short film unit until 1946, again working as an art director, producer and director. His notable films as director include Champagne Charlie (1944), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and I Became a Criminal (1947). After the latter film he moved back to Brazil. There he made Song of the Sea (1953) ("The Song of the Sea") and A Real Woman (1954) ("Woman of Truth") with his own production company. However, his progressive political views caught the attention of the the right-wing Brazilian authorities, and Cavalcanti thought it prudent to return to Europe in 1954. He eventually settled in France, where he continued his work in television. He died in Paris in 1982.- Cinematographer
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Albert Maysles was born on 26 November 1926 in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Grey Gardens (1975), Salesman (1969) and Gimme Shelter (1970). He was married to Gillian Walker. He died on 5 March 2015 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Director
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David Maysles was born on 10 January 1931 in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Grey Gardens (1975), Gimme Shelter (1970) and Salesman (1969). He died on 3 January 1987 in New York City, New York, USA.- Producer
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Robert Kirk is known for Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness (2000), Destroyer (1988) and Apollo: Missions to the Moon (2019).Sink the Bismarck
The Berlin Airlift
Sugihara
Thomas Sowell : Common Sense- Director
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Mikhail Kalatozov was born on 28 December 1903 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Cranes Are Flying (1957), True Friends (1954) and Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950). He died on 27 March 1973 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Director
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Matthew Heineman is an Academy Award-nominated, nine-time Emmy Award-winning, and two-time DGA Award-winning filmmaker. The Sundance Film Festival called Heineman "one of the most talented and exciting documentary filmmakers working today," while Anne Thompson of IndieWire wrote that Heineman is a "respected and gifted filmmaker who combines gonzo fearlessness with empathetic sensitivity."
In 2019, he received a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First Time Feature Film Director from the Directors Guild of America for his narrative debut, A Private War - making Heineman and Martin Scorsese the only filmmakers ever nominated for both narrative and documentary DGA Awards. A Private War stars Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci, and Oscar-nominee Rosamund Pike as legendary war reporter Marie Colvin. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to widespread critical acclaim before being released nationwide by Aviron Pictures. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick, and Variety hailed the film as "Heineman's astonishing narrative debut" and "an incredibly sophisticated, psychologically immersive film." A Private War also earned two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress and Best Original Song.
His latest film, American Symphony, is a portrait of Academy Award and Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste. While composing an original symphony for Carnegie Hall, Batiste receives 11 Grammy nominations and is at a career high. But this trajectory is upended when his life partner -- best-selling author Suleika Jaouad -- learns that her long dormant cancer has returned in this film about two artists at a crossroads. It premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival where it was lauded by both audiences and critics, and was subsequently acquired by Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground. Clayton Davis of Variety hailed the film as "quite possibly one of the best love stories seen on film in over two decades" while Daniel Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a celebration of art, resilience and the mutability of the human spirit." American Symphony was shortlisted for an Academy Award, won the PGA Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures, and has received over 40 nominations including the BAFTA Film Award, Critics Choice Award, and NAACP Image Award. The film is available to stream on Netflix.
Heineman previously directed and produced Retrograde, which offers a cinematic and historic window onto the end of America's twenty-year war in Afghanistan and the costs endured for those most intimately involved from rarely seen operational control rooms to the frontlines of battle to the chaotic Kabul airport during the final U.S. withdrawal. The feature documentary from National Geographic Films premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2022, where it received wide-spread critical acclaim. Retrograde was shortlisted for an Academy Award, nominated for a DGA and PGA Award, and was nominated for six Emmy awards, winning for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Outstanding Cinematography, and Outstanding Editing. It also received a Producing Award from DOC NYC, and was honored with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Feature Documentary. The Wrap commended the film as "a triumph of access and unbelievable bravery," while Salon called it "chilling" extolling that "Heineman has become famous for his cinema verité approach that avoids both interviews and voiceovers, but this film takes that signature style to an entirely new level of art." The Times proclaimed it "hair-raising" and that Heineman "creates some of the most beautiful images in documentary film-making today." Following the November 2022 theatrical release, Retrograde premiered on National Geographic Channel on December 8th, 2022 and is now available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
Prior to Retrograde, Heineman directed, produced, shot, and edited The First Wave, a feature documentary film with exclusive access inside one of New York City's hardest-hit hospital systems during the harrowing first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic. The First Wave received the International Documentary Association's prestigious Pare Lorentz Award, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and was nominated for seven Emmy awards, winning Best Documentary, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. The film was a New York Times Critics' Pick hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as a "masterfully crafted film" and Variety as "a courageous and astonishing cinematic time capsule." Released by National Geographic Documentary Films and NEON, the film is available on Hulu.
Previously, Heineman directed Amazon's The Boy From Medellin, an astonishingly intimate portrait of international superstar J Balvin that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before being released by Amazon Studios. Additionally, Heineman co-directed with Matthew Hamachek the Emmy winning two-part documentary Tiger, which he also executive produced. The documentary, which was released by HBO in two parts in January 2021, offers a revealing look at the rise, fall, and epic comeback of global icon Tiger Woods.
Heineman directed and executive produced The Trade, a Showtime docu-series that chronicles a different topic each season, from the opioid crisis to human trafficking, through the eyes of those most affected. It was described by The Hollywood Reporter as "a thriller... like Traffic only current and real", while the New York Times said, "Heineman has shown an uncanny ability to gain access to hard-to-reach people and places." Both seasons of the show premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received overwhelming critical acclaim and awards recognition. It won Best Episodic Series at the 2018 IDA Awards for season one, as well as two News & Documentary Emmy Awards for season two, including Outstanding Direction for Heineman.
His documentary film City of Ghosts, which follows a group of citizen-journalists exposing the horrors of ISIS, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed worldwide by Amazon Studios before having its broadcast premiere on A&E. Heineman won his second Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary Award from the DGA for the film- one of only three directors to win the prestigious honor twice. City of Ghosts also won the Courage Under Fire Award from the International Documentary Association "in recognition of conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of the truth" and was listed on over 20 critics year-end lists for Best Documentary of 2017. The film was also nominated for a BAFTA Award, PGA Award, IDA Award, and Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.
Cartel Land, which explores vigilantes taking on the Mexican drug cartels, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and won three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and Best Cinematography. The film premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where Heineman won the Best Director Award and Special Jury Prize for Cinematography. Cartel Land was also awarded the Courage Under Fire Award, the DGA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary, and the George Polk Award in Journalism. The film was released theatrically nationwide by The Orchard and had its broadcast premiere on A&E.
He previously co-directed and produced the feature-length, Emmy-nominated documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescure American Healthcare; collaborated for two years on the Emmy-nominated HBO series, The Alzheimer's Project; and also directed and produced Our Time, his first documentary about what it's like to be young in America.
Heineman founded Our Time Projects, a New York based production company that produced some of Heineman's gripping and unprecedented films such as City of Ghosts and Retrograde, in 2009. Heineman, a 2005 graduate of Dartmouth College, is based in New York City.- Producer
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Davis Guggenheim was born on 3 November 1963 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Training Day (2001), Waiting for Superman (2010) and An Inconvenient Truth (2006). He has been married to Elisabeth Shue since August 1994. They have three children.- Director
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His documentaries helped spur a rebirth of non-fiction film in the 80s & garnered wide critical success. But until 2003's "The Fog of War," Morris was shunned by the Academy Awards.
Morris' first two films won much acclaim (Gates of Heaven (1978) and Vernon, Florida (1981)). In the second movie, Morris intended to explore "Nub City," the town known for residents trading limbs for insurance settlements, but death threats (and some other equally fascinating locals) morphed Morris' focus into profiling other citizens instead.
After his first two films, Morris found financing for new projects scarce, so he turned to a unusual source of income - working as a New York private detective. Finally, after 6 years, he moved into feature-length, (and more serious projects) with The Thin Blue Line (1988).
Errol Morris cites his detective experience as providing new skills for his investigative filmmaking, most notably in "The Thin Blue Line", which resulted in a wrongfully convicted man being freed from a lifetime sentence in Texas after serving 13 years for a policeman's murder. Morris persuaded the real murderer to help free the innocent man. The real killer was subsequently executed for a unrelated murder.
Morris uses techniques not traditionally seen in documentaries, to make his films more dramatic and diverse, such as the Thin Blue Line's incredibly eerie Philip Glass score, and the haunting reenactments of the policeman's murder. Thin Blue Line's multiple points of view have drawn favorable comparisons to Kurosawa's ground-breaking cinema classic, Rashomon (1950). His own striking, innovative film style is very influential. Like Alfred Hitchcock, Morris knows how to create careful doses of emotional reality, which can have much more impact on a viewer than a literal reality can be on film.
Technical problems forced Morris to insert his voice as an interviewer for the first time, at the end of The Thin Blue Line, and he's experimented with using himself in his documentaries since. Morris incorporated his reaction to his parents' recent deaths in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997).
Morris feels his interviewing of subjects, has been greatly enhanced in his later work, by devising the Interrotron (terror and interview). It's two cameras, one on Morris and one on the interviewee. Each sees the other's images staring directly into the lens, to give the audience the appearance the subject is talking directly to them.
While his work explores a wide range of subjects, Morris has stated his films break down into "Completely Whacked Out" and "Politically Concerned." Many focus on people with strong, unusual obsessions. His cable documentary series First Person, was especially effective presenting with great sympathy, power and humor, compelling individuals such as Temple Grandin, an animal scientist who has autism. Grandin designs animal slaughterhouses to be humane.
Fred Leuchter, the subject of Morris' film, Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999) was slated to be one of the people profiled in Morris' "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control", but Morris decided putting Leuchter in the same film would overpower the other portraits. Leuchter'd been dubbed "The Florence Nightingale of Death Row" for his career of making prisoner execution methods more humane, was invited by a Holocaust denier who was on trial, to examine the site of the Auschwitz death camp. Way out of his league, Leuchter's faulty, amateurish research led him to claim that Auschwitz could not have been used for executions. "Accidental Nazi" was considered as a title for the film. Morris prefers characters who are puzzling.
The film brought Morris (who's Jewish) much criticism and attention. One of Morris' recurring themes is the powerful contrasts between how his subjects view themselves, and how audiences view them. The witty Morris revels in his own off kilter humor, iconoclasm, and extreme skepticism when he's being interviewed.
Morris had problems when he ventured into directing a Hollywood fiction film as did his contemporaries Michael Moore, Joe Berlinger, and Bruce Sinofsky. The Dark Wind (1991) was held up by the studio for 2 years, then released on video. It was an adaptation of a Tony Hillerman mystery novel, executive produced by Robert Redford. Morris has continued entirely with non-fiction, though many of his subjects are much stranger than fiction anyway.
He has taken on difficult subjects, such as A Brief History of Time (1991), about the paraplegic physicist Stephen Hawking, illustrating Hawking's revolutionary theories, and comparing the paralyzed scientist's own rich interior world periled by ALS, with the complex, dying universe Hawking limns.
Morris' film The Fog of War (2003), examines the architect of the U.S. war in Vietnam, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Morris' academic training in philosophy and history shows in his documentaries' vast depth. While getting a history degree at University of Wisconsin, Morris explored doing a film on notorious local murderer Ed Gein (Gein was the basis for Psycho (1960)). Morris also studied at Princeton and University of California - Berkeley.
Morris' directing career started while he programmed shows at the California's Pacific Film Archive. A newspaper headline spurred his first film "Gates of Heaven," revealing with bizarre developments in 2 widely contrasting pet cemeteries. The uncut film confounded editors, such as Academy Award nominee David Webb Peoples (Unforgiven (1992)). German film director Werner Herzog bet Morris that the film would never get made. At Berkeley, Herzog settled the bet on stage in an incredible display, as documented by director Les Blank (whose son 'Harrod Blank'_ is also an acclaimed documentary filmmaker) in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.
Morris, who received a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, says none of his films have made him money, so he directs commercials, and won an Emmy in 2001. A series of campaign ads he did for John Kerry was little shown. Morris' much-criticized approach was to Interrotron actual Republicans and conservatives who had switched to support Kerry, versus George W. Bush. Morris has an occasional feature in the New York Times ruminating on the power and meaning of photos.
Opening April 2008 is his new feature, Standard Operating Procedure (2008), which explores abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The film is accompanied by a book of on-set photos of Morris' productions.Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara- Director
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Peter Watkins began his career in advertising as an assistant producer and turned to amateur filmmaking in the late 1950s. In the mid-'60s he was commissioned by BBC-TV to make two feature-length docudramas incorporating a quasi-newsreel style and nonprofessional actors. The second of these, The War Game (1966), graphically portrayed the nightmare of nuclear war and was banned from broadcast. It was subsequently released in theaters and earned a best documentary Oscar in 1966. Watkins enjoyed modest success with the commercial feature film Privilege (1967), but has subsequently worked primarily in the documentary genre, based in various Scandinavian countries. One of his more recent films, Resan (1987), is an 873-minute (14-hour) epic that addresses such issues as the arms race and global hunger.- Director
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Steve James was born in Hampton, Virginia, USA. He has been based in Chicago, Illinois, USA for his entire career. He is known for the documentary films Hoop Dreams (1994), Stevie (2002), The Interrupters (2011), Life Itself (2014) and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016). His documentary series works include America to Me (2018), City So Real (2020) and most recently, The Luckiest Guy in the World (2023).- Director
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Ross McElwee was born on 21 July 1947 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Sherman's March (1985), Bright Leaves (2003) and Photographic Memory (2011). He is married to Hyun Kyung Kim. He was previously married to Marilyn Levine.- Producer
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Academy Award, eight-time Emmy nominated, and Peabody, DGA, and Sundance winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger has been a pioneering force in nonfiction filmmaking for over three decades. In a recent Bloomberg profile, Berlinger was described as a "true crime hit factory" for Netflix, whose work has "redefined crime documentaries as a vehicle for social justice." The article quoted Adam Del Deo, VP for original documentary series at Netflix: "He's the gold standard in true crime. The moral compass that he has, the sense of responsibility he has for victims and for getting the story right and shining a light on it, that is something that is very unique." Berlinger is the creator of landmark documentaries such as Sundance winner BROTHER'S KEEPER, which influenced a generation of documentarians and the PARADISE LOST Trilogy, which helped lead to the release of the wrongfully-convicted West Memphis Three, and METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER, a film that redefined the rockumentary genre. CRUDE, which examined the dire issue of oil pollution in the ancestral homeland of thousands of Ecuadorians in the Amazon Rainforest, won 22 human rights, environmental and film festival awards and triggered a high profile First Amendment battle with the Chevron Corporation. Eight of Berlinger's films, including his Emmy-nominated 2012 Paul Simon documentary, UNDER AFRICAN SKIES, have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and have earned three Grand Jury Prize nominations. He has also received multiple awards from the Directors Guild of America, the National Board of Review, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Critics Choice awards.
Berlinger holds a streak of chart-topping series on Netflix, attracting enormous audiences and igniting global conversation by becoming the first filmmaker to simultaneously cover the same subject in scripted and unscripted forms with CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE TED BUNDY TAPES and EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL, AND VILE, which starred Zac Efron, Lilly Collins, and John Malkovich and sold to Netflix in a Sundance bidding war for almost $10 million. The recently released film GHISLAINE MAXWELL: FILTHY RICH and doc series BERNIE MADOFF: THE MONSTER OF WALL STREET also both debuted as the #1 documentaries upon their release.- Producer
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Charles Ferguson was born on 24 March 1955 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Inside Job (2010), No End in Sight (2007) and Watergate (2018).- Director
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Orlando von Einsiedel is the Oscar-winning director of short documentary, The White Helmets. His first feature documentary, the Bafta and Academy-Award nominated documentary, Virunga won over 50 international film awards including an Emmy, a Peabody, a Grierson and a duPont-Columbia Award for outstanding journalism. He is a former professional snowboarder and lives in London, UK.- Director
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Bert Haanstra was born on 31 May 1916 in Holten, Overijssel, Netherlands. He was a director and writer, known for Zoo (1961), Glass (1958) and Spiegel van Holland (1950). He was married to Angenieta Barendiena Wijtmans. He died on 23 October 1997 in Hilversum, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.- Director
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D.A. Pennebaker was born on 15 July 1925 in Evanston, Illinois, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back (1967), The War Room (1993) and Unlocking the Cage (2016). He was married to Chris Hegedus, Kate Taylor and Sylvia Bell. He died on 1 August 2019 in Sag Harbor, New York, USA.- Producer
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Peter Davis was born on January 2, 1937 in Los Angeles, California. His parents were the screenwriters Frank Davis and Tess Slesinger (who was also a short story writer and novelist). Davis is a producer and director, known for Hearts and Minds (1974), The Selling of the Pentagon (1971) and "JACK" (1993). Davis has also written three nonfiction books: Hometown, Where Is Nicaragua? and If You Came This Way.Nelson Mandela: Prisoner to President
The Seling of the Pentagon- Director
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Eugene Jarecki is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning director of dramatic and documentary subjects who has twice won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, first in 2005 for Why We Fight (2005) and again in 2012 for The House I Live In (2012)
A public intellectual on domestic and international affairs, Jarecki has been named a Soros Justice Fellow at the Open Society Institute and a Senior Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. He has appeared on 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart', 'Charlie Rose', 'The Colbert Report', 'FOX News', CNN, and many other outlets, while also being featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and GQ, among others. As founder and executive director of The Eisenhower Project, a public policy group dedicated to promoting greater public understanding of the forces that shape U.S. foreign and defense policy, he published the 2008 book 'The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril' (Simon & Schuster). He is also the creator of 'Move Your Money', an online video that sparked a national movement in 2010 to shift personal banking away from "too big to fail" banks into community banks and credit unions. To date, more than four million Americans have "moved their money."
Mentored in his youth by legendary filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, Jarecki worked as a stage director before turning to film. When he was 21, his first short film 'Season of the Lifterbees' was selected for screening at the Sundance Film Festival. Since then, he has continued to receive wide critical acclaim as both a dramatic and documentary director in film and television. "Combining the skills of journalist and poet," writes Variety. "Eugene Jarecki sets the gold standard for political documentaries." Often motivated by his outrage at areas of corruption, exploitation, or injustice in contemporary life, Jarecki's films elegantly combine compassion with rigorous inquiry, weaving story, emotion, and penetrating analysis into a very human tapestry of unforgettable sounds and images.- Producer
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David Sington is known for The Fear of 13 (2015), In the Shadow of the Moon (2007) and Mercury 13 (2018).- Director
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Louie Psihoyos was born on 15 April 1957 in Dubuque, Iowa, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Racing Extinction (2015), Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times (2021) and The Cove (2009).- Writer
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Dawn Gifford Engle is a filmmaker, an activist, and Co-Founder of The PeaceJam Foundation. She has been recognized for excellence in filmmaking, winning many awards including 12 Best Director awards. She wrote and directed the award-winning documentary films, Rigoberta Menchu: Daughter of the Maya, Desmond Tutu: Children of the Light, Adolfo Perez Esquivel: Rivers of Hope, Oscar Arias: Without a Shot Fired, Betty Williams: Contagious Courage, The Dalai Lama -- Scientist, and Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free. In addition, she co-authored the book, "PEACEJAM: A Billion Simple Acts of Peace", which was published by Penguin in 2008, and she has been nominated 17 times for the Nobel Peace Prize.- Director
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The son of a wealthy physician, Emile de Antonio grew up in the tough coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and it made a deep impression on him. His sympathies were always with working-class people (although he was a Harvard graduate, he was at times a dock worker, a peddler, the captain of a river barge and a broker in war-surplus equipment), and his documentaries are decidedly Marxist in philosophy. His most famous film is probably Point of Order! (1964), about the Army-McCarthy hearings ten years previously, but his most controversial films would be Millhouse (1971), a scathing indictment of then-President Richard Nixon, and In the Year of the Pig (1968), a radically left-wing perspective on the Vietnam War.- Cinematographer
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Born in 1935 in Tampa, Florida, Les Blank attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where he received a B.A. in English literature and an M.F.A. in theatre. In 1967, after two years in the Ph.D. film program at the University of Southern California, and five years of freelancing in Los Angeles, he began his first independent films, on Texas blues singer Lightnin Hopkins (The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1970)) and the newly forming sub-culture, known as flower children, (God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance (1968)). To finance these and other of his own films, he continued to make industrial and promotional films for such organizations as Holly Farms Poultry, Archway Cookies and the National Wildlife Federation until 1972.
Blank's first independent films began a series of intimate glimpses into the lives and music of passionate people who live at the periphery of American society - a series that grew to include rural Louisiana French musicians and cooks.
Major retrospectives of Les Blank's films have been mounted in Los Angeles at FILMEX in 1977; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1978 and 1984; New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1979; the National Film Theatre, London in 1982; Cineteca Nacional, Mexico City in 1984; the Cinematheque Francais, Paris in 1986; the Independent Film Week, Augsburg, Germany in 1990 and the Leipzig Film Festival in 1995 and the Sofia Music Film Festival, Bulgaria in 1998. Feature articles on Blank have appeared in American Film, Film Quarterly, Take One, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Image Magazine, Mother Jones, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Premiere, Downbeat and Video Review. In 1984, Blank co-edited the "Burden of Dreams" book, which included journals written during the making of Burden of Dreams by him, sound recordist-editor Maureen Gosling and Werner Herzog, plus an article by legendary journalist Michael Goodwin. In 1986, National Public Radio aired a half-hour special on Les Blank's work and, in 1991, CNN aired a special on him, worldwide.
Among Blank's numerous awards are the British Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary, 1982, (Burden of Dreams (1982)); the Golden Gate Award "Best of Festival", San Francisco Film Festival, 1982 ("Burden of Dreams"); Grand Prize, Melbourne Film Festival, 1985 (In Heaven There Is No Beer? (1984)); Special Jury Award U.S. (Sundance) Film Festival, 1985 ("In Heaven There Is No Beer?"); Grand Award, Houston Film Festival, 1983 ("Burden of Dreams"); Golden Hugo, Chicago Film Festival, 1969 (The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1970)). Blank also received a 10,000 Euro prize for "Yum, Yum, Yum" for best film in the International Ethnographic Film Festival, Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy, 2002
In 1990, Les Blank received the American Film Institute's Maya Deren Award for outstanding lifetime achievement as an independent filmmaker. In 1989-1990, Blank was the distinguished filmmaker-in-residence at San Diego State University and, in 1991, adjunct assistant professor in film at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also the Louis B. Mayer filmmaker-in-residence at Dartmouth College and a directing fellow at the Sundance Institute in Utah (both in 1984). His work has been supported by The National Endowment For the Arts, The American Film Institute, The National Endowment For the Humanities, The Ford Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, PBS and the BBC. Between 1973 and 1994, Blank toured extensively with the sponsorship of the United States Information Agency, screening his films and discussing them with audiences throughout Latin America, China, England, Spain, Germany, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Egypt. Les Blank is a member of: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Blank currently has four documentaries in production: about David Lee Hoffman, importer of rare and fine teas rom China; Alabama folk artist Butch Anthony; seminal documentary filmmaker Richard Leacock; and a project on the diRosa preserve in Napa, a major collection of Northern California art.- Cinematographer
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Richard Leacock was born on 18 July 1921 in London, England, UK. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Omnibus (1952), Canary Island Bananas (1935) and 1 P.M. (1971). He was married to Eleanor Burke and Valérie Lalonde. He died on 23 March 2011 in Paris, France.- Director
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Dziga Vertov was born on 2 January 1896 in Bialystok, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire [now Podlaskie, Poland]. He was a director and writer, known for Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Three Songs About Lenin (1934) and The Sixth Part of the World (1926). He was married to Elizaveta Svilova. He died on 12 February 1954 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Director
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Eduardo Coutinho was born on 11 May 1933 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. He was a director and writer, known for Edifício Master (2002), Santo Forte (1999) and Babilônia 2000 (1999). He was married to Maria das Dores de Oliveira. He died on 2 February 2014 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Jogo de Cena
Edifício Master
Cabra Marcado Para Morrer- Director
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Born in 1930, Wiseman is a Cambridge, Massachusetts resident and member of the Massachusetts Bar Association who turned to filmmaking in 1967, after years as an instructor and/or researcher at Boston University, Brandeis University, and Harvard. In 1970 he founded Zipporah Films, Inc., which continues to distribute his documentaries. Wiseman has also written and lectured widely on law enforcement issues.- Director
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Hans-Jürgen Syberberg was born on 8 December 1935 in Nossendorf, Pomerania, Prussia [now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern], Germany. He is a director and producer, known for Ludwig - Requiem for a Virgin King (1972), Die Nacht (1985) and Scarabea - wieviel Erde braucht der Mensch? (1969).semi-documental style- Writer
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The master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, as one of the creators of neo-realism, is one of the most influential directors of all time. His neo-realist films influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s that changed the face of international cinema. He also influenced American directors, including Martin Scorsese.
He was born into the world of film, making his debut in Rome on May 8, 1906, the son of Elettra (Bellan), a housewife, and Angiolo Giuseppe "Beppino" Rossellini, the man who opened Italy's first cinema. He was immersed in cinema from the beginning, growing up watching movies in his father's movie-house from the time that film was first quickening as an art form. Italy was one of the places were movie-making matured, and Italian film had a huge influence on D.W. Griffith and other international directors. Between the two world wars, Hollywood would soon dictate what constituted a "well-made" film, but Rossellini would be one of the Italian directors who once again put Italy at the forefront of international cinema after the Second World War.
His training in cinema was thorough and extensive and he became expert in many facets of film-making. (His brother Renzo Rossellini, also was involved in the industry, scoring films.) He did his apprenticeship as an assistant to Italian filmmakers, then got the chance to make his first film, a documentary, "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", in 1937. Due to his close ties to Benito Mussolini's second son, the critic and film producer Vittorio Mussolini, he flourished in fascist Italy's cinema. Once Il Duce was deposed, Rossellini produced his first classic film, the anti-fascist Rome, Open City (1945) ("Rome, Open City") in 1945, which won the Grand Prize at Cannes. Two other neo-realist classics soon followed, Paisan (1946) ("Paisan") and Germany Year Zero (1948) ("Germany in the Year Zero"). "Rome, Open City" screenwriters Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini were nominated for a Best Writing, Screenplay Oscar in 1947, while Rossellini himself, along with Amidei, Fellini and two others were nominated for a screen-writing Oscar in 1950 for "Paisan".
"I do not want to make beautiful films, I want to make useful films," he said. Rossellini claimed, "I try to capture reality, nothing else." This led him to often cast non-professional actors, then tailor his scripts to their idiosyncrasies and life-stories to heighten the sense of realism.
With other practitioners of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti, film was changed forever. American director Elia Kazan credits neo-realism with his own evolution as a filmmaker, away from Hollywood's idea of the well-made film to the gritty realism of On the Waterfront (1954).
Rossellini had a celebrated, adulterous affair with Ingrid Bergman that was an international scandal. They became lovers on the set of Stromboli (1950) while both were married to other people and Bergman became pregnant. After they shed their spouses and married, producing three children, history repeated itself when Rossellini cheated on her with the Indian screenwriter Sonali Senroy DasGupta while he was in India at the request of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to help revitalize that country's film industry. It touched off another international scandal, and Nehru ousted him from the country. Rossellini later divorced Bergman to marry Das Gupta, legitimizing their child that had been born out-of-wedlock.
Rossellini continued to make films until nearly his death. His last film The Messiah (1975) ("The Messiah"), a story of The Passion of Christ, was released in 1975.
Roberto Rossellini died of a heart attack in Rome on June 3, 1977. He was 71 years old.semi-documental style- Director
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Ken Russell tried several professions before choosing to become a film director; he was a still photographer and a dancer and he even served in the Army, but film was his destiny. He began by making several short films which paved the way for his brilliant television films of the 1960s that are acclaimed for his attention to detail and opulent visuals. His third feature film Women in Love (1969) was a triumph that made him known internationally. In the 1970s, his talent truly blossomed. Over the next two decades he would direct a succession of remarkable films, most containing the trademark flamboyance that critics generally dismiss but many find engrossing. He will forever be remembered as a controversial, visionary artist with something of a third eye for oddball dramas with captivating images and themes.- Director
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Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has won numerous national and international awards for his poetic feature and documentary films.- Director
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Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. His résumé showed that he had worked as an assistant to film maker Robert Bresson when Malle was hired by underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau to be a camera operator on the Calypso. Cousteau soon promoted him to be co-director of The Silent World (1956) ("The Silent World"). Years later, Cousteau called Malle the best underwater cameraman he ever had. Malle's third film, The Lovers (1958) ("The Lovers"), starring Jeanne Moreau broke taboos against on screen eroticism. In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the obscenity conviction of an Ohio theater that had exhibited "Les Amants." A director during the Nouvelle Vague, New Wave" of 1950s and 1960s (though technically not considered a Nouvelle Vague auteur), he also made films on the other side of the Atlantic, starting with Pretty Baby (1978), the film that made Brooke Shields an international superstar. The actress who played a supporting role in that film was given a starring role in Malle's next American film, Atlantic City (1980). That promising actress was Susan Sarandon.
In one of his later French films, Goodbye, Children (1987), Malle was able to find catharsis for an experience that had haunted him since the German occupation of France in World War II. At age 12, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school near Paris that was a refuge for several Jewish students, one of them was Malle's rival for academic honors and his friend. A kitchen worker at the school with a grudge became an informant. The priest who was the principal was arrested and the Jewish students were sent off to concentration camps.
In his final film, Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), Malle again penetrated the veil between life and art as theater people rehearse Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." In that film, Malle worked again with theater director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn, the conversationalists of My Dinner with Andre (1981). Malle was married to Candice Bergen, and he succumbed to lymphoma in 1995.Le monde du silence
Place de la République
Calcutta- Director
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Alain Resnais was born on 3 June 1922 in Vannes, Morbihan, France. He was a director and editor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Same Old Song (1997) and My American Uncle (1980). He was married to Sabine Azéma and Florence Malraux. He died on 1 March 2014 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.Les statues meurent aussi
Toute la mémoire du monde
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Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.- Director
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He started off by making short films for television on which he was producer,screenwriter and cameraman. This was interrupted by military service in the army but only partly as he was put into the army film unit where he made over 100 films. Demobbed in 1960 he used family money for his first feature Le propre de l'homme (1961) which was a total flop. In '61 he started filming 'La Vie de Chateau' but was forced to close down after one week due to lack of finance. In 1964 he made L'amour avec des si (1964) which was a success in Sweden but a flop everywhere else. In 1963 his film Night Women (1964) had 40 minutes cut by the censor so it was never shown publicly. His film Une fille et des fusils (1965) was his first to recover production costs. In 1965 came his 5th completed film Les grands moments (1966) but he thought it so bad that he bought the film himself so that it would never be seen. Things changed round completely the following year with what became a classic - A Man and a Woman (1966) which won the 'Grand Prix at Cannes, an Oscar for Best Picture numerous other awards.- Director
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Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until reunification). At university, Wenders originally studied to become a physician before switching to philosophy before terminating his studies in 1965. Moving to Paris, he intended to become a painter.
He fell in love with the cinema but failed to gain admission to the French national film school. He supported himself as an engraver while attending movie houses. Upon his return to West Germany in 1967, he was employed by United Artists at its Düsseldorf office before he was accepted by the University of Television and Film Munich school for its autumn 1967 semester, where he remained until 1970. While attending film school, he worked as a newspaper film critic. In addition to shorts, he made a feature film as part of his studies, Summer in the City (1971).
Wenders gained recognition as part of the German New Wave of the 1970s. Other directors that were part of the New German Cinema were Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. His second feature, a film made from Peter Handke's novel The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972), brought him acclaim, as did Alice in the Cities (1974) and Kings of the Road (1976). It was his 1977 feature The American Friend (1977) ("The American Friend"), starring Dennis Hopper as Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Tom Ripley, that represented his international breakthrough. He was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival for "The American Friend", which was cited as Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review in the United States.
Francis Ford Coppola, as producer, gave Wenders the chance to direct in America, but Hammett (1982) (1982) was a critical and commercial failure. However, his American-made Paris, Texas (1984) (1984) received critical hosannas, winning three awards at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or, and Wenders won a BAFTA for best director. "Paris, Texas" was a prelude to his greatest success, 1987's Wings of Desire (1987) ("Wings of Desire"), which he made back in Germany. The film brought him the best director award at Cannes and was a solid hit, even spawning an egregious Hollywood remake.
Wenders followed it up with a critical and commercial flop in 1991, Until the End of the World (1991) ("Until the End of the World"), though Faraway, So Close! (1993) won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Still, is reputation as a feature film director never quite recovered in the United States after the bomb that was "Until the End of the World." Since the mid-1990s, Wenders has distinguished himself as a non-fiction filmmaker, directing several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and Pina (2011), both of which brought him Oscar nominations.Buena vista Social Club
U2: The Best of 1990-2000
The Soul of a Man
Pina
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Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career as a filmmaker at the age of 30. Since then he has made many movies and has become one of the most important figures in contemporary Iranian film. He is also a major figure in the arts world, and has had numerous gallery exhibitions of his photography, short films and poetry. He is an iconic figure for what he has done, and he has achieved it all by believing in the arts and the creativity of his mind.- Producer
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Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the direction of Mike D and Adam Horovitz and Adam Yauch before the sad demise of Grand Royal Records. Jonze was also responsible for directing the famous Beastie Boys: Sabotage (1994) short film as well as numerous other music videos for various artists.- Writer
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James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.- Director
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Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan. Reacting against the studio system, and particularly against the style of Yasujirô Ozu, the director he first assisted, Imamura moved away from the subtlety and understated nature of the classical masters to a celebration of the primitive and spontaneous aspects of Japanese life. To explore this level of Japanese consciousness, Imamura focuses on the lower classes, with characters who range from bovine housewives to shamans, and from producers of blue movies to troupes of third-rate traveling actors. He has proven himself unafraid to explore themes usually considered taboo, particularly those of incest and superstition. Imamura himself was not born into the kind of lower-class society he depicts. The college-educated son of a physician, he was drawn toward film, and particularly toward the kinds of films he would eventually make, by his love of the avant-garde theater. Imamura has worked as a documentarist, recording the statements of Japanese who remained in other parts of Asia after the end of WWII, and of the "karayuki-san"--Japanese women sent to accompany the army as prostitutes during the war period. His heroines tend to be remarkably strong and resilient, able to outlast, and even to combat, the exploitative situations in which they find themselves. This is a stance that would have seemed impossible for the long-suffering heroines of classical Japanese films. In 1983, Imamura won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Ballad of Narayama (1983), based on a Shichirô Fukazawa novel about a village where the elderly are abandoned on a sacred mountaintop to die. Unlike director Keisuke Kinoshita's earlier version of the same story, Imamura's film, shot on location in a remote mountain village, highlights the more disturbing aspects of the tale through its harsh realism. In his attempt to capture what is real in Japanese society, and what it means to be Japanese, Imamura used an actual 40-year-old former prostitute in his The Insect Woman (1963); a woman who was searching for her missing fiancé in A Man Vanishes (1967); and a non-actress bar hostess as the protagonist of his History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970). Despite this anthropological bent, Imamura has cleverly mixed the real with the fictional, even within what seems to be a documentary. This is most notable in his A Man Vanishes (1967), in which the fiancée becomes more interested in an actor playing in the film than with her missing lover. In a time when the word "Japanese" is often considered synonymous with "coldly efficient," Imamura's vision of a more robust and intuitive Japanese character adds an especially welcome cinematic dimension.- Cinematographer
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One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers. He was born in Spain but moved to Cuba by age 18 to join his exiled anti-Franco father. In Havana, he founded a cineclub and wrote film reviews. Then, he went on to study in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale. He directed six shorts in Cuba and two in New York. After the 1959 Cuban revolution, he returned and made several documentaries for the Castro-regime. But after two of his shorts (Gente en la playa (1960) and La Tumba Francesca) had been banned, he moved to Paris. There he became the favourite cameraman of Éric Rohmer and François Truffaut. In 1978, he started his impressive Hollywood-career. In his later years, he co-directed two documentaries about the human rights situation in Cuba: Improper Conduct (1984) (about the persecution of gay people) and Nadie escuchaba (1987). He shot several prestigious commercials for Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Nestor Almendros died of cancer.- Writer
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Michael Glawogger was born on 3 December 1959 in Graz, Austria. He was a writer and director, known for Workingman's Death (2005), Untitled (2017) and Whores' Glory (2011). He died on 23 April 2014 in Liberia.- Cinematographer
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Ron Fricke is known for Samsara (2011), Baraka (1992) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).- Director
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Academy Award Nominated and Emmy Award Winner Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi has been directing, shooting, and editing since the age of sixteen. His documentaries have been dealing with Human-Rights issues especially around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some of them have been touching very sensitive and controversial issues that have been making a big impact on both local and international debate around these issues such as militarization of Israeli society and Israeli occupation of Palestine. His films were shown in TV channels and festivals worldwide. Some also reached a theatrical distribution worldwide. His short films include titles such as "In Working Progress" (2006), "Women Defying Barriers" (2009) and "High Hopes" (2014), which features music by Pink Floyd. In 2010 he released his first feature documentary "Interrupted Streams" (2010). His second feature "5 Broken Cameras" (2012) was directed with Palestinian, self-taught camera-man Emad Burnat. The film had an exemplary international success. It was nominated to the Oscar 2013 in the Best Documentary section and has won the 2013 International Emmy Award for Best Documentary. Davidi won the prize for Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival as well as the Audience and Jury awards at IDFA in Amsterdam and the Best Documentary in Cinema Eye Honours. In addition, it won awards in more than 50 film festivals worldwide, it was sold to numerous TV stations and commercially distributed in theaters across Europe, Asia and North America. His third feature length "Mixed Feelings" (2016) won the Best Documentary Award in Epos film Festival in Tel Aviv. After moving to Copenhagen, in 2022 Davidi released his fourth feature documentary "Innocence" in the 79th Venice Biennale as the only documentary within the Horizon Competition. The film was then selected to festivals worldwide such as Asia's biggest festival of Busan, International Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) and Chicago International film festival.see too Guy David- Writer
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Ari Folman was born on 17 December 1962 in Haifa, Israel. He is a writer and director, known for The Congress (2013), Waltz with Bashir (2008) and Saint Clara (1996).- Director
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Rithy Panh was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the 18th april 1964. He is today one of the most acclaimed documentary filmmakers and the most famous Cambodian filmmaker worldwide. After 1975 his family died through the genocidal Khmer Rouge government (1975-1979) while he could escape in 1979 to Thailand. Panh arrived a year later in Paris, France as an orphan and stayed. Rithy Panh later studied at 'La Fémis', the French National Cinema School. In 1989, Site 2 (1989), his first documentary about Cambodian refugees, won several international awards. Since then Panh created a unique body of work consisting of documentaries and feature films that mostly deal with the modern Cambodia and the traumatic legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime. His most famous documentary is probabaly S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003) about the infamous torture prison of the Khmer Rouge. Later his avant-garde documentary The Missing Picture (2013) became the first Cambodian film nominated for an Academy Award as 'Best Foreign Language Film'. Rithy Panh, along with director Ieu Pannakar, has developed 'Bophana: Audio Visual Resource Center - Cambodia', with an aim towards preserving the country's film, photographic and audio history. Rithy Panh received an honorary doctorate in 2011 by the University of Paris-VIII and published in 2012 his acclaimed autobiography "L'Élimination". In 2014 he received the 'Preservation and Scholarship' Award of the International Documentary Association (IDA).- Director
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Nicolás Echevarría was born on 18 August 1947 in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico. He is a director and cinematographer, known for Eco de la montaña (2014), Cabeza de Vaca (1991) and Teshuinada, semana santa Tarahumara (1979).- Director
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Patricio Guzmán was born on 11 August 1941 in Santiago, Chile. He is a director and writer, known for Nostalgia for the Light (2010), The Battle of Chile: Part I (1975) and The Southern Cross (1991).- Producer
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Alex Gibney was born on 23 October 1953 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) and Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015). He has been married to Anne Gibney since 14 August 1982. They have three children.- Director
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Joshua Oppenheimer was born on 23 September 1974 in Texas, USA. He is a director and producer, known for The Act of Killing (2012), The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase (1998) and The Look of Silence (2014).- Director
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Michael Apted was born on 10 February 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Amazing Grace (2006), Rome (2005) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988). He was married to Paige Simpson, Dana Stevens and Jo Apted. He died on 7 January 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Director
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Leon Gast was born on 30 March 1936 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He was a director and producer, known for When We Were Kings (1996), Smash His Camera (2010) and The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013). He was married to Geri Spolan. He died on 8 March 2021 in Woodstock, New York, USA.- Director
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Mikhail Romm was born in 1901, into a Russian-Jewish family, in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia. He served in the Red Army in 1918-21 as an Inspector of the Special Forces for Food Supplies. He was in charge of confiscations of bread and food from the wealthier farmers (kulaks) in Central Russia. Romm later was avoiding any discussions regarding this painful memories, though he used his experience in the films about Lenin.
He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Arts and Technology as a sculptor (1925), where he studied under Anna Golubkina. Worked as a sculptor and interpreter. In 1928-30 he worked at Institute for extra-scholastic studies as researcher on the theory of Cinematography. From 1931 he worked at Mosfilm Studios, where he made his first film 'Pyshka' (1934). His next film '13' (1936) was considered the first Soviet "eastern" (a Soviet answer to "western"). During the years of "Great Terror" under Joseph Stalin Romm made two features and a documentary about Lenin.
His criminal drama 'Murder on the Dante Street' (1956) was the first film for the great Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy. After an eight-year brake Romm made his 'Nine Days in One Year' (1962). It was an excellent psychological drama about the life and death of nuclear physicists. After the political shifts during and after the "Thaw", started by Nikita Khrushchev, Romm devoted his talent to documentary material. He worked like a sculptor, cutting through the massive Nazi archives of documentaries in Germany. His work was rewarded with an astounding result - 'Tiumph over violence' (1965) in which he also was a narrator. His last film 'I vse-taki Ya Veryu' (1974) was finished by his disciples Marlen Khutsiev and Elem Klimov.- Director
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Jean Rouch was born on 31 May 1917 in Paris, France. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Moi, un noir (1958), Madame L'Eau (1993) and Six in Paris (1965). He was married to Joselyne Lamothe. He died on 18 February 2004 in Birni N'Konni, Niger.- Producer
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Amy Berg was born in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is known for Deliver Us from Evil (2006), West of Memphis (2012) and Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015).- Producer
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Barbara Kopple was born on 30 July 1946 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), American Dream (1990) and Shut Up & Sing (2006).- Producer
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Jehane Noujaim was born on 17 May 1974 in Cairo, Egypt. She is a producer and director, known for Control Room (2004), Startup.com (2001) and The Square (2013).- Producer
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Pamela Yates (Director) was born and raised in the Appalachian coal-mining region of Pennsylvania but left at a young age to live New York City. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, the Director of the Sundance Award winning "When the Mountains Tremble", the Producer of the Emmy Award winning "Loss of Innocence," and the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning "Witness to War." She most recently directed the film "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator"," which served as key evidence in the Ríos Montt genocide trial in Guatemala. Previously Yates directed, "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court," a feature-length film and educational initiative and "State of Fear", a feature-length documentary that tells the epic story of Peru's 20-year war on terror based on the findings of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Pamela is a co-founder and partner of Skylight Pictures, a company committed to producing artistic, challenging and socially relevant independent media and media strategies on issues of human rights and the quest for justice.- Producer
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The award winning documentary film director and producer, Susan Morgan Cooper, grew up in a tiny village in Wales where her parents produced plays to raise money for charity. Shortly after arriving in America, she landed a small role in a Clint Eastwood film, but found film editing more fascinating than acting.
In 1991, when Susan met a 16-year-old girl from Croatia, displaced by The Balkan War, she felt compelled to make her first documentary, Mirjana- One Girl's Journey. She went on to produce and direct a documentary television series called Heroes and Sheroes about ordinary people doing extraordinary things for others. Afterwards she spent three months filming in Tuscany The Making Of Shadows in the Sun, directed by Brad Mirman with Harvey Keitel, Joshua Jackson, Claire Forlani and Giancarlo Giannini .
Susan then made the highly acclaimed, award-winning documentary, An Unlikely Weapon. It was the story of Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographer, Eddie Adams, who's Saigon Execution photo was credited with helping end the Vietnam War. The Hollywood Reporter called it 'a terrific documentary'.
Susan then went to China to direct and produce Mulberry Child, a film that traces a present day mother and daughter's emotional disconnect back to Mao's Cultural Revolution. Roger Ebert called Mulberry Child 'a powerful and touching film' and gave it three and a half stars.
With Cass Warner, Susan wrote and produced a documentary HOPPER: In His Own Words about the iconic actor Dennis Hopper.
Susan's latest film, To the Moon and Back, is the story behind the Russian Adoption Ban and it's impact on the lives of hundreds of American families and thousands of Russian orphans. Huffington Post calls the award-winning film a 'highly evocative exposé'.
Susan is in post-production on Fatal Distraction, a documentary about an innocent father sentenced to life without parole after police fuel misinformation and the media incites the public.
She is also in pre-production on a narrative feature film , East L.A. Kings. Based on the real life events of a cop who takes a group of troubled boys off the streets through the P.A.L. program and turns them into a championship roller hockey team.- Producer
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Laura Poitras was born on 2 February 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She is a producer and director, known for Citizenfour (2014), The Oath (2010) and My Country, My Country (2006).- Producer
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Susan Lacy is known for American Masters (1985), Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018) and The Janes (2022). She is married to Halsted Welles. She was previously married to Bill N. Lacy.- Director
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Jennifer Arnold is an Emmy-nominated director who was raised a drama-geek / skateboard kid in Santa Barbara, California. Her summers were spent living off the grid, without electricity, in the Trinity Alps and Alaskan wilderness with her extended family. She became a world traveler at age sixteen; moved to Kenya at nineteen and continues to work and travel abroad. She credits her story sense to her adventurous upbringing.
In the episodic space Arnold has most recently directed "Based on a True Story," "P-Valley" and the pilot for "XO Kitty." which went number one on Netflix within 24 hours. Her other television credits include "Emily in Paris," "American Horror Story," "Younger," "Shameless," "The L-Word: Generation Q," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," and "The Last Man on Earth among others. Her independent and documentary work has premiered at prestigious festivals around the world, including four appearances at Sundance. Arnold's feature documentary A Small Act (HBO) won the Humanitas Prize, a NAMIC Vision Award, and was nominated for the Best Documentary Emmy. Her other documentaries include The Diplomat (ESPN), Tig (Netflix), and Thicker Than Water, about Greg Louganis for ESPN's 30 for 30 shorts series.
She has been an advisor at the Sundance labs and CNEX workshops in Asia and traveled to Kazakhstan with American Film Showcase. She attended UCLA's Graduate Film School and studied African History as an undergrad at UCLA and University of Nairobi. She lives in Los Angeles with her wife, the esteemed ASC cinematographer Patti Lee.- Producer
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Liz Garbus was born on 11 April 1970 in the USA. She is a producer and director, known for What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), The Farm: Angola, USA (1998) and Becoming Cousteau (2021). She is married to Dan Cogan. They have two children.The best docs producer is a Woman?- Producer
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Academy Award nominated and Emmy winning director Connie Field is a pioneering social documentary filmmaker. Before getting involved in film she worked as an organizer in many social and human rights organizations where she established her commitment to progressive social change which she has carried into her film career. Many of her films focus on hidden histories, stories that had not been told before which should be an important part of our collective memories. Her work has been broadcast in over 30 countries including Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, England, and in the US. She is a recipient of the John Grierson Award as most outstanding social documentarian, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"The Whistleblower of My Lai" is a doc/opera fusion that tells a story that captures both the best and worst of humanity through the examination of one incident in one man's life: army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his discovery of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. "Al Helm: Martin Luther King in Palestine" explores a cross cultural arts collaboration between African Americans and Palestinians, collective memory, shared dreams, and theater as a cultural force for social change which won the Audience Award at the Mill Valley Festival and the Justice Matters Award at the DC International Film Fest. She produced and directed "Have You Heard From Johannesburg" a seven part series on the global movement which ended Apartheid in South Africa which won a Prime Time Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmaking, and awards as Best Limited Series, IDA; Best Documentary of 2010, Village Voice, Time Out New York, and the Audience Award when it was broadcast on PBS's Independent Lens.
Her feature documentary "Freedom on My Mind" (1994) is a history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. It won numerous prizes including an Academy Award nomination; the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival; Distinguished Documentary Award, International Documentary Association and was named "One of the Ten Best Films" of 1994 by a variety of film critics, including the San Francisco Examiner and The Oakland Tribune. It was broadcast on PBS's American Experience.
She was a member of Boston Newsreel Films where she worked on productions and distribution. She was a co-director on "Forever Activists" (1990 Academy Award Nominee), and she produced, directed and edited the feature documentary "The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter" (1980). "Rosie" earned numerous international awards for Best Documentary (including Gold Hugo, Chicago; John Grierson, Blue Ribbon, American International Festival; Golden Marazzo, Festival dei Popoli; Gold Award, Houston; Cine Golden Eagle; Golden Athena, Athens Festival; British Academy Award Nominee), was named "One of the Ten Best Films of the Year" by a number of publications, including the Village Voice and Film Comment, was voted "Best Independent Feature of the Year" in American Film Magazine, was translated into 20 different languages; and is listed in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It was broadcast on The American Experience.
Other work includes "Salud !" (2007), a doc on Cuba's role in the struggle for global health equity (Henry Hampton Award, Council on Foundations and the Audience Award, Pan African Film Festival).- Director
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Erwin Wagenhofer was born in 1961 in Amstetten, Lower Austria, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for But Beautiful (2019), We Feed the World (2005) and Let's Make Money (2008).He stopped, suddenly- Director
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He studied film directing in Vienna (Univ. of Performing Arts). In 1994 he emigrated to France and wrote a thesis about French movie director Ciryl Collard in Université Der Paris VIII and graduated B.A.(Mag. art). Actually Hubert teaches film classes in Europe and the United Stated while he directs his documentaries. The last two documentaries he wrote and directed were awarded twelve International Film Prizes. His most successful movies, like "The Kisangani diaries" and "Darwin's nightmare", deal with the consequences of globalization in the third world, specially in Africa.- Producer
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Ulrich Seidl was born on 24 November 1952 in Vienna, Austria. He is a producer and director, known for Rimini (2022), Paradise: Love (2012) and Goodnight Mommy (2014). He is married to Veronika Franz. They have two children.- Director
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Award-winning documentary filmmaker Andrei Zagdansky was born on March 9, 1956 in Kiev, Ukraine, back then a part of the Soviet Union. He received a MFA with distinction from Kiev State University of Theatrical Arts. His first feature documentary, the seminal Interpretation of Dreams (1990), juxtaposed the filmmaker's dialog with Sigmund Freud and the history of the Soviet Union. The result was "interesting and provocative" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times) and an "astonishing marriage of Freudian thinking and history" (Boston Globe). The film was awarded with the Grand-Prix of the last "All- Union" Documentary film festival in 1990 (the Soviet Union ceased to exist the following year) and premiered at the opening night of IDFA that same year. In 1992 Andrei and his family relocated to the United States. In 1994 he received a Rockefeller Fellowship. He taught several film courses at New School in New York. Over the years he directed/produced a number of innovative, personal documentaries - "My Father Evgeni", "Konstantin and Mouse"; often blending documentary footage with animation - "Vasya", "Vagrich and the Black Square" or staged theatrical performances - "Orange Winter".- Director
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Godfrey Reggio is a pioneer of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his QATSI trilogy, essays of visual images and sound that chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the environment. Reggio, who spent 14 years in silence and prayer while studying to be a monk, has a history of service not only to the environment but to youth street gangs, the poor, and the community as well.
Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in southwest Louisiana, Reggio entered the Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic pontifical order, at age 14. He spent 14 years of his adolescence and early adulthood in fasting, silence, and prayer. Based in New Mexico during the 1960s, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school, and college. In 1963, he co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs. Following this, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe, and La Gente, a community-organizing project in Northern New Mexico's barrios. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization, and research. In 1974 and 1975, with funding from the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio co-organized a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior.
_Koyaanisqatsi (1983)_, Reggio's debut as a film director and producer, is the first film of the QATSI trilogy. The title is a Hopi word meaning "life out of balance." Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds--urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by renowned composer Philip Glass. Powaqqatsi (1988), Reggio's second film, conveys a humanist philosophy about the earth, the encroachment of technology on nature and ancient cultures, and the splendor that disappears as a result. The film focuses on the so-called modern way of life and the concept of the Global Village, entwining the distinctive textures of ancient and so-called Third World cultures. Powaqqatsi was co-written, co-produced and directed by Reggio and had music composed by Philip Glass between 1985 and 1987. In 1991 Reggio directed Anima Mundi (1991), a film commissioned by Bulgari, the Italian jewelry company, for the World Wide Fund for Nature, which used the film for its Biological Diversity Program. Accompanied by the music of Philip Glass, the 28-minute Anima Mundi is a montage of intimate images of over seventy animal species that celebrates the magnificence and variety of the world's fauna.
In 1993, Reggio was invited to develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media being founded by the Benetton company. Called Abrica--Future, Presente, it opened in May 1995, in Treviso, Italy, just outside Venice. While serving as the initial director of the school through 1995, Reggio co-authored the 7-minute film Evidence (1995) that provides another point of view to observe the subtle but profound effects of modern living on children. In 2002, Godfrey Reggio completed Naqoyqatsi (2002), the final film of the QATSI trilogy, again with music by Philip Glass. Currently, Reggio is in the initial stages of production on a new film, working with a narrative structure for the first time, that will explore the negative impact that consumerism and fundamentalism has had on the world. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology, and film.- Producer
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Brett Morgen was born on 11 October 1968 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Jane (2017), Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) and The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002). He has been married to Debra Eisenstadt since 2001.- Director
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Thierry Michel, the indefatigable globe trotter. Always anxious to find out about the wide world, the Belgian director has already explored, through documentary or fiction, Morocco and its people (Issue de secours 1987)), Brazilian favelas (Gosses de Rio (1990), the culture of Zaire (Zaïre, le cycle du serpent (1992)), a Guinean hospital (Donka radioscopie d'un hôpital africain (1996)) or the contadictions of Iranian society (Iran sous le voile des apparences (1996)). But Thierry Michel does not forget his native Belgium. Born in 1952 in Charleroi, in the heart of an industrial region nicknamed "the Black Country, the director made his first documentaries following the miners or the steelworkers among whom he had been raised. His first feature film was also well-rooted since it was a re-creation of the great insurrectional strike of 1960 (Hiver 60 (1983)). Thierry Michel also explored the inside of a Belgian prison in "Hôtel particulier". But whether in his native Belgium or in a far country, this humanist is always on the lookout for what brings people closer together. Which makes him more than just a standard documentarist or fiction director. Don't miss his last movie Katanga Business (2009), a brilliant political thriller.Children of Chance- Cinematographer
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As director and cinematographer, Richard Ladkani has gained international recognition for numerous award-winning films.
"Sea of Shadows", a National Geographic documentary, executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2019, as well as numerous awards at prestigious festivals around the world. The film illustrates how Mexican drug cartels and the Chinese Mafia, have declared war on the Sea of Cortez, one of the world's most beautiful ecosystems for money and greed, resulting in the possible extinction of the vaquita, the smallest whale on earth.
The Netflix Original "The Ivory Game", also executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2017 and won numerous prizes including the Genesis, the Cinema for Peace Award and the Golden Panda. This investigative thriller-doc, on the illegal trade of ivory and the extinction of elephants, had its world premiers at the prestigious Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals and helped bring an end to the legal ivory trade in China.
In early 2015 Richard and his wife Anita Ladkani founded Malaika Pictures. The name is the Swahili word for "Angel" and also the middle name of their first-born daughter. Malaika Pictures produces films that shine a bright spotlight on the most pressing environmental and political issues of our time.
Their newest project in development is a feature documentary on the Amazon Rainforest, as well as a narrative feature film based on the bestselling book "City of Thorns", a Romeo & Julia type love story that focuses on the life of refugees in the living hell of Dadaab (Kenya), the largest UN Camp in the world.
His most renowned films include "Escape over the Himalayas", "The Devil's Miner", "Jane's Journey" (shortlisted for Academy Award); "Vatican - The Hidden World" and "Gas Monopoly".
Richard has photographed more than 50 documentaries, of which he directed or co-directed eleven. He lives near Vienna Austria, with his wife and two daughters.
For more information please visit www.richardladkani.com or www.malaikapictures.com.- Writer
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John Pilger was born on 9 October 1939 in Bondi, New South Wales, Australia. He was a writer and director, known for The War You Don't See (2010), The World About Us (1967) and Heroes: A John Pilger Report (1981). He was married to Scarth Flett. He died on 30 December 2023 in London, England, UK.see too Palestine Is Still the Issue (2003)
The War on Democracy (2007)- Director
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Mat Hames is a director, writer and producer, known for his two Independent Lens documentaries What Was Ours (2017) and When I Rise (2010) and for documentary series Power Trip: the Story of Energy (2020-2024). His films have screened at SXSW, HotDocs, IDFA, AFI, the Santa Barbara Film Festival, LA Shorts Fest, and SundanceTV. When I Rise (2010) was nominated for an IDA Award in the category of Best Music Documentary. He is a co-founder of Austin, Texas based non-fiction production company Alpheus Media who produces content for PBS, Warner Brothers, Prime, SundanceTV, and others.- Producer
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Stanley Nelson is among the premier documentary filmmakers working today. His feature-length films combine compelling narratives with rich and deeply researched historical detail, shining new light on both familiar and under-explored aspects of the American past.
In addition to honors for his individual films, Nelson and his body of work have garnered every major award in the industry. He is a MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, and was awarded an individual Peabody Award, the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts Sciences, and received the National Medal in the Humanities from President Barack Obama.
Nelson's latest film, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, the definitive look at the life and career of the iconic Miles Davis, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019. The screening marked Nelson's tenth premiere at the prestigious festival in twenty years, the most premieres of any documentary filmmaker.
In 2018, Nelson directed a short film which examined the history and impact of racial profiling in public spaces. The Story of Access was screened at a mandatory training for 175,000 Starbucks employees across 8,000 stores, and received over a million views on.- Steven Okazaki was born in 1952 in Venice, California, USA. He is a director and producer, known for White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007), Days of Waiting (1991) and Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015).
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Kon Ichikawa has been influenced by artists as diverse as Walt Disney and Jean Renoir, and his films cover a wide spectrum of moods, from the comic to the overwhelmingly ironic and even the perverse. Ichikawa began his career as a cartoonist, and this influence is apparent in his skillful use of the widescreen, and in the strong, angular patterns seen in many of his compositions. He has directed Mr. Pu (1953), a popular film based on Junichi Yokoyama's "Mr. Pu" comic strip. At various points in his career Ichikawa has shown that he is capable of appealing to a popular audience without compromising his artistry. A great visual stylist and perfectionist, Ichikawa excels at screen adaptations of literary masterpieces, including Sôseki Natsume's The Heart (1955), Yukio Mishima's Conflagration (1958), Jun'ichirô Tanizaki's Odd Obsession (1959) and I Am a Cat (1975) and Tôson Shimazaki's The Outcast (1962). He has also remade film classics, such as Yutaka Abe's Ashi ni sawatta onna (1926) (Ichikawa's version: 1952) and Teinosuke Kinugasa's Yukinojô henge: Daiippen (1935) (Ichikawa's version: 1963), transposing them to contemporary settings.
The West was first introduced to Ichikawa when his The Burmese Harp (1956) won the San Giorgio Prize at the 1956 Venice Film Festival. His epic documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965) (released the following year) and Alone on the Pacific (1963) explore, with dignity and imagination, the limits of human endurance. He has also worked in the thriller genre, with The Hole (1957), The Inugami Family (1976) and The Devil's Island (1977). Ichikawa tends to present strongly etched, complex characters: the stuttering acolyte who desires to preserve the "purity" of the Golden Pavilion (ENJO); the elderly husband who resorts to injections and voyeurism in order to remain sexually active (KAGI); the member of a pariah class who tries to deny his identity and to "pass" in regular society (HAKAI). More recently, Actress (1987) is a tribute to the fiercely independent Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka, who starred in many of Kenji Mizoguchi's films and was herself a director in later life. On the lighter side, Ichikawa's characters also include a 19th-century cat; a good-hearted, hapless teacher; and a baby who narrates how the world looks from his vantage point. He is especially adept at mixing comedy and tragedy within the same story. Until 1965, Ichikawa's close collaborator was his wife, screenwriter Natto Wada, with whom he produced most of his finest films.- Director
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Claude Lanzmann was born on 27 November 1925 in Bois-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a director and writer, known for Shoah (1985), The Four Sisters (2018) and Israel, Why (1973). He was married to Dominique Lanzmann-Petithory, Angelika Schrobsdorff and Judith Magre. He died on 5 July 2018 in Paris, France.- Director
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Rob Stewart is an award-winning biologist, photographer, conservationist and filmmaker. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Stewart began photographing underwater when he was 13. By the age of 18 he became a scuba instructor and then moved on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, studying in Ontario, Jamaica and Kenya.
Before making Sharkwater (2007), Stewart spent four years traveling the world as chief photographer for the Canadian Wildlife Federation's magazines. Leading expeditions to the most remote areas of the world, Stewart has logged thousands of hours underwater using the latest in camera and rebreather technologies. Stewart's highly sought after images have appeared in nearly every media form worldwide.
While on assignment to photograph sharks in the Galapagos Islands, Stewart discovered illegal longlining, indiscriminately killing sharks within the marine reserve. He tried promoting awareness through print media, but when the public didn't respond, Stewart decided to make a film to bring people closer to sharks. At the age of 22 he left his photography career behind and embarked on a remarkable journey over four years and 12 countries, resulting in the epic Sharkwater.
When Stewart boarded Sea Shepherd's ship, Sharkwater took a turn from a beautiful underwater film into an incredible human drama filled with corruption, espionage, attempted murder charges and mafia rings, forcing Stewart and his crew to become part of the story. During filming, Stewart encountered life threatening obstacles, including diseases such as West Nile, Tuberculosis, Dengue Fever and flesh eating disease.
Sharkwater has been hugely successful, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and winning a "Canada's Top Ten" award. Sharkwater made history with the largest opening weekend of any Canadian documentary, and was the most award-winning documentary of the year, winning over 35 awards at prestigious film festivals around the world. As of 2012 it is the third highest grossing Canadian documentary in the last ten years, next to the high budget films, Nascar and Oceans.
Stewart's hardcover book, Sharkwater: An Odyssey to Save the Planet, was released in October 2007 by Key Porter Books. His book Save the Humans will be released in the Fall of 2012 by Random House.
Stewart continues to work towards conservation and environmental education, speaking at the University of Victoria, Yale University, Vancouver Aquarium, ROM, various TEDx events, and others.
Stewart is on the board of numerous conservation groups including WildAid, Shark Savers and the Shark Research Institute, and recently founded his own charity, United Conservationists, based in Los Angeles and Toronto.
He has made featured appearances on numerous high profile TV shows including Larry King Live, The Today Show, Tonight Show, The Late Show, Nightline, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, ET Canada, Bloomberg, The Hour, BBC1, MTV and others.
In a 2011 The Grid Magazine survey, he was voted top living resident for making Toronto a better place.
Stewart is currently completing work on his second film, Revolution, due in theaters in 2013, with a companion rich digital media component, and How-to Guide to save humanity.Sorrowful, premature death- Producer
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Steven Cantor is best known as the director of such hit documentaries as Dancer (2017) Chasing Tyson (2015), loudQUIETloud: A Film About Pixies (2011) and What Remains (2007). He is also the producer of such films as STEP (2017), Devil's Playground (2002), Reporter (2011) and Unraveled (2012). He is the founder of NY based Stick Figure Productions.- Producer
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Morgan Neville was born on 10 October 1967 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal (2015), Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) and The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2015).- Editor
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Steen Johannessen A Danish editor and co-director of Last Men in Aleppo. Steen has edited numerous Danish and international award-winning documentaries. The latest being IDFA award winner Who We Were, DOC NYC grand jury award winner Motley's Law by Nicole Horayni, Chinese DOC NYC special mention The Road by Zhang Zanbo, Miners Shot Down the Emmy winning film from Rehad Desai, Sundance award winner Putins Kiss and Hotdocs award winner Warriors From The North by Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen. Steen has also edited "Last Men in Aleppo".Editor of the best Scandinavian docs.- Producer
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Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi was born on 30 December 1978 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for The Rescue (2021), Free Solo (2018) and Meru (2015). She has been married to Jimmy Chin since 26 May 2013. They have two children.- Writer
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Born 8 May 1926, the younger brother of actor Lord Richard Attenborough. He never expressed a wish to act and, instead, studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, graduating in 1947, the year he began his two years National Service in the Royal Navy. In 1952, he joined BBC Television at Alexandra Palace and, in 1954, began his famous "Zoo Quest" series. When not "Zoo Questing", he presented political broadcasts, archaeological quizzes, short stories, gardening and religious programmes.
1964 saw the start of BBC2, Britain's third TV channel, with Michael Peacock as its Controller. A year later, Peacock was promoted to BBC1 and Attenborough became Controller of BBC2. As such, he was responsible for the introduction of colour television into Britain, and also for bringing Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969) to the world.
In 1969, he was appointed Director of Programmes with editorial responsibility for both the BBC's television networks. Eight years behind a desk was too much for him, and he resigned in 1973 to return to programme making. First came "Eastwards with Attenborough", a natural history series set in South East Asia, then The Tribal Eye (1975) , examining tribal art. In 1979, he wrote and presented all 13 parts of Life on Earth (1979) (then the most ambitious series ever produced by the BBC Natural History Unit). This became a trilogy, with The Living Planet (1984) and The Trials of Life (1990).
His services to television were recognised in 1985, and he was knighted to become Sir David Attenborough. The two shorter series, "The First Eden" and "Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives" were fitted around 1993's spectacular Life in the Freezer (1993), a celebration of Antarctica and 1995's epic The Private Life of Plants (1995), which he wrote and presented. Filming the beautiful birds of paradise for Attenborough in Paradise (1996) in 1996 fulfilled a lifelong ambition, putting him near his favourite bird. Entering his seventies, he narrated the award-winning Wildlife Specials (1995), marking 40 years of the BBC Natural History Unit. But, he was not slowing down, as he completed the epic 10-part series for the BBC, The Life of Birds (1998) along with writing and presenting the three-part series State of the Planet (2000) as well as The Life of Mammals (2002). Once broadcast, he began planning his next projects.
He has received honorary degrees from many universities across the world, and is patron or supporter of many charitable organisations, including acting as Patron of the World Land Trust, which buys rain forest and other lands to preserve them and the animals that live there.Absolutely Iconic writer and producer