Donna Deitch is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and actor best known for her 1985 film Desert Hearts. The movie was the first feature film to "de-sensationalize lesbianism" by presenting a lesbian romance story with positive and respectful themes.
Body of War is a 2007 documentary film about Iraq War veteran Tomas Young. Bill Moyers Journal featured a one-hour special about Body of War including interviews with filmmakers Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue.
Troop 1500 is a documentary film which won two Gracie Awards from the American Women in Radio & Television (AWRT) in the Individual Achievement Award for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Documentary. The nationally broadcast film (PBS) follows a unique Girl Scouts of the USA troop which unites mothers and daughters monthly behind the bars at the Hilltop Unit, a prison of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, in Gatesville, Texas. All of the mothers have been convicted of serious crimes and are serving long sentences.
Are the Kids Alright? is a documentary film which explores mental health care for children and youths at risk in Texas. The filmmaker, Ellen Spiro, gained unprecedented access to troubled children and their families, as well as the judicial, psychiatric and correctional institutions. By following several different families, the filmmakers document the results of the decline in the availability of mental health services for the youth who most desperately need it.
Atomic Ed and the Black Hole is a documentary released in 2001 by filmmaker, Ellen Spiro. The documentary was made for HBO's Cinemax Reel Life Series. Sheila Nevins served as Executive Producer and Lisa Heller served as Supervising Producer. Karen Bernstein served as Producer. Laurie Anderson provided her song, Big Science, for the soundtrack.
Roam Sweet Home is a 1996 American documentary film directed by Ellen Spiro. In road-trip style, it follows the lives of retirees who live on the road full-time in trailers, due to economic necessity, pleasure, or bot.
Greetings from Out Here is a 1993 road trip documentary film which captures the people, places and politics of gay America in the Deep South.
Diana's Hair Ego is an American documentary film about AIDS and one unconventional woman's efforts to educate her small, Southern community. While documenting an AIDS quarantine controversy in South Carolina with DIVA TV, filmmaker Ellen Spiro met DiAna DiAna, a local hairdresser who transformed her beauty parlor into a center for AIDS and safe sex information.
The 10 Under 10 Film Festival was created by independent documentary filmmaker and University of Texas at Austin Associate Professor, Ellen Spiro. The intention of the film festival is to encourage raw creativity among new filmmakers without relying on huge budgets.
Ellen Kuras is an American cinematographer whose work includes narrative and documentary films, music videos and commercials in both the studio and independent worlds. One of few female members of the American Society of Cinematographers, she is a pioneer best known for her work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). She has collaborated with directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Lee, Sam Mendes, Jim Jarmusch, Rebecca Miller, Martin Scorsese and more. She is the three-time winner of the Award for Excellence in Dramatic Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits, Angela and Swoon, which was her first dramatic feature after getting her start in political documentaries.
Anne Aghion is a French-American documentary filmmaker. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Mac Dowell Colony Fellow and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellow.
Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hierarchy within historical narratives through the use of pioneering documentary and research methodologies that center vernacular image and collaboration. He is currently working on a new television show, Family Pictures USA, which takes a radical look at neighborhoods and cities of the United States through the lens of family photographs, collaborative performances, and personal testimony sourced from their communities..
dream hampton is an American filmmaker, producer, and writer. Her work includes the 2019 Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which she executive produced, and the 2012 An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, on which she served as co-executive producer. She co-wrote Jay-Z's 2010 memoir Decoded.
Ricardo Ainslie is a Mexican-American documentary filmmaker. A native of Mexico City, his work is highly interdisciplinary in character, which explains his formal affiliations with the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and the American Studies programs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the department of Educational Psychology. He holds dual US and Mexican citizenship. He earned his bachelor's degree (Psychology) at the University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan. He serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals including Psychoanalytic Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is a scholar of Performance and Jewish Studies and a museum professional. Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University, she is best known for her interdisciplinary contributions to Jewish studies and to the theory and history of museums, tourism, and heritage. She is currently the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition and Advisor to the Director at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Tenzing Sonam is a Tibetan film director, writer and essayist based in Dharamshala. He works through his production company, White Crane Films, which he runs with his partner, Ritu Sarin.
Kyle Henry is an American independent filmmaker, editor, and educator. Henry teaches film production at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, while also spending time in Los Angeles and Austin.
Salem Mekuria is an Ethiopian-born independent filmmaker, video artist and educator living in the United States.
Gaiutra Bahadur is a Guyanese-American writer. She is best known for Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2014.
Fiona Jane Dawson is a writer, producer, and film director. She is best known for the documentary TransMilitary, which premiered at SXSW Film Festival in 2018 and won the Audience Award. Dawson is an Emmy-nominated documentarian and has lived in America since 2000.
