The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is a three-screen movie theater complex in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, north of Washington, D.C. It is operated by the American Film Institute.
The Long Day Closes is a 1992 British drama film written and directed by Terence Davies and starring Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack, Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont and Ayes Owens. It was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.
Barbara Kopple is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic french style to a modern American audience. She has won two Academy Awards, for Harlan County, USA (1977), about a Kentucky miners' strike, and for American Dream (1991), the story of the 1985–86 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota, making her the first woman to win two Oscars in the Best Documentary category.
Street Fight is a 2005 documentary film by Marshall Curry, chronicling the 2002 Newark mayoral election which pitted upstart Cory Booker against the incumbent Sharpe James for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Other credits include Rory Kennedy, Liz Garbus, Mary Manhardt, Marisa Karplus, Catherine Jones, and Adam Etline. Street Fight screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and was later aired on the PBS series P.O.V. on July 5, 2005, and CBC Newsworld in Canada on May 7, 2006. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Thomas Furneaux Lennon is a documentary filmmaker. He was born in Washington, D.C., graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1968 and Yale University in 1973.
Patrick Shen is an American writer, director, and producer. Shen is the founder of Transcendental Media.
Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).
Yvonne Welbon is an American independent film director, producer, and screenwriter based in Chicago. She is known for her films, Living with Pride:Ruth C. Ellis @ 100 (1999), Sisters in Cinema (2003), and Monique (1992).
Yoruba Richen is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Her work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, New York Magazine's website -The Cut, The Atlantic and Field of Vision. Her film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel to record audiences and was awarded the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking.
Everybody's Everything is a 2019 documentary film about the life of American rapper and singer-songwriter Lil Peep. The film was directed by Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan, produced by Benjamin Soley and executive produced by Terrence Malick, Liza Womack and Sarah Stennett. It chronicles the life of Lil Peep from his childhood in Long Beach, NY through his meteoric rise in the underground scene and music industry, up to his death on November 15, 2017 at the age of 21. The film takes its title from one of Lil Peep's Instagram posts, which appeared the day before his death. “I just wanna be everybody's everything," he wrote. The documentary is described as a "humanistic portrait that seeks to understand an artist who attempted to be all things to all people."
Sebastian N. Jones is an American film director, screenwriter, and editor. He is best known for his documentary film Everybody's Everything (2019), which chronicles the life of Lil Peep. Jones is a frequent collaborator and protégé of Terrence Malick.
A Thousand Cuts is a 2020 Philippine-American documentary film about Maria Ressa, the founder of the online news site Rappler. Directed by Ramona Diaz, it explores the conflicts between the press and the Filipino government under President Rodrigo Duterte.
Theo Anthony is an American film director, editor, and cinematographer from Baltimore, Maryland known for his documentary films, including 2016's Rat Film. Anthony's work draws inspiration from the experimental film essays of directors such as Harun Farocki and Chris Marker.
Mehret Mandefro is an Ethiopian–American film/television producer, writer, physician and anthropologist. She is the group leader of the Indaba Africa, a co-founder of Realness Institute and co-founder of Truth Aid Media and is a board member of advisors for the shared Harvest Fund. She is also a recipient of The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans (2001) and in 2007 sat as one of the 41 distinguished New American panelists. In 2016, she was honoured by Carnegie Corporation of New York as one of America's Great Immigrants.
9to5: The Story of a Movement is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. The film revolves around 9to5, an organization established to improve working conditions and ensuring the rights of women and families.
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street is a 2021 American documentary film directed by Marilyn Agrelo.
Desert One is an 2019 American documentary film directed and produced by Barbara Kopple. It follows Operation Eagle Claw, a mission that was an attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 embassy staff held hostage.
Try Harder! is a 2021 American documentary film, directed and produced by Debbie Lum. It follows students at Lowell High School as they apply and hope for admission to the college of their dreams.
499 is a 2020 Mexican-American documentary hybrid film directed by Rodrigo Reyes. The film is a creative exploration of the legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexico, 500 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The film had its international premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the best cinematography award in the documentary competition, as well as winning the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs the same year. It also won the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Golden Frog Prize for Best Docudrama.
