Irene Taylor | |
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Born | St. Louis, Missouri | June 15, 1970
Education | New York University, Columbia University Graduate School Of Journalism |
Alma mater | NYU (BA) Columbia University (MA) |
Occupation(s) | Film director Film producer Writer Cinematographer editor |
Years active | 2004 – present |
Parent |
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Irene Taylor (born June 15, 1970) is a film director and producer.
Taylor was born on June 15, 1970,[ citation needed ] to deaf parents Sally and Paul Taylor. [1] She graduated from New York University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. [2]
Taylor began her documentary career in photojournalism. Her first feature documentary, Hear and Now, a documentary memoir about her deaf parents, won the Audience Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, a Peabody Award, and numerous awards at festivals around the world. It was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America in 2008 for Documentary of the Year. Her HBO feature documentary Beware the Slenderman received two 2017 Critics' Choice Award nominations, for Best Director and Best Documentary, and was also nominated for a 2018 Emmy Award.
Taylor's previous credits include several theatrically released short films, all which aired on HBO. The Final Inch, about the global effort to eradicate polio, was nominated for an Academy award, multiple Emmys, and won the IDA's Pare Lorentz Award. After the 2010 Gulf oil spill, she followed the life of a single bird found coated in oil, and made Saving Pelican 895 which won an Emmy for its affecting music. She directed One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp, which won the 2014 Prime Time Emmy for Best Children's Programming. In 2016 she released Open Your Eyes, about an aging couple living in the Himalayas determined to regain their sight. Taylor's short opinion film Between Sound and Silence was released by The New York Times Op-Docs.
Taylor's early career began in Kathmandu, Nepal, working as a Himalayan Mountain guide and author. Her photography book, Buddhas in Disguise, became the basis for her first documentary film, made in 1993 with the United Nations. She was a producer for CBS Sunday Morning, and founded her production company Vermilion Films in 2006. [3]
In 2019, Taylor made Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements about her deaf son, her deaf father and Beethoven, as he went deaf while writing his famous sonata. It premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for a 2020 PrimeTime Emmy Award for Special Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. That year, Taylor founded The Treehouse Project, a nonprofit forging broader accessibility to documentary film.
Taylor's film Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of the Boy Scouts premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, and won a 2022 Columbia-DuPont award.
In 2021 it was announced that Taylor would be working with Sony Music on a documentary about the French-Canadian singer Celine Dion. The film, I Am: Celine Dion , was released on June 21, 2024. [4]
Taylor's documentaries have appeared on HBO, Hulu, CBS, A&E, Fox, and the History Channel.
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.
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.
Hear and Now is a 2007 documentary film by Irene Taylor Brodsky, winning awards in 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival and the Heartland Film Festival; and garnering a Peabody Award in 2008.
Elizabeth Freya Garbus is an American documentary film director and producer. Notable documentaries Garbus has made are The Farm: Angola, USA,Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,Bobby Fischer Against the World,Love, Marilyn,What Happened, Miss Simone?, and Becoming Cousteau. She is co-founder and co-director of the New York City-based documentary film production company Story Syndicate.
Tia Lessin is an American documentary filmmaker. Lessin has produced and directed documentaries and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary.
Paul Taylor was an American engineer, a pioneer in development of telecommunications devices for the deaf. He also enjoyed a kind of celebrity status because of his central role in the award-winning documentary Hear and Now. The film by daughter Irene Taylor Brodsky chronicles the before and after experiences of her parents, Paul and Sally Taylor, both of whom underwent cochlear implant surgeries in their mid-60s after a lifetime of deafness.
Jeanne Jordan is an American independent director, producer and editor. She was nominated for an Academy Award and has received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival among many other awards.
Steven Ascher is an American independent director, producer and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award and has received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival among many other awards. His book The Filmmaker’s Handbook is a bestselling text.
Peter Richardson is an American documentary film director. A native of Philomath, Oregon, Richardson is a 1998 graduate of Philomath High School and attended the University of Notre Dame on a scholarship. After graduating from Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film Production & Theory, Richardson moved to Los Angeles where he worked for a short time at a publicity company before moving back to Oregon to start work on his first film. Richardson has directed two award-winning feature documentaries. His first film, Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film was later aired on the Sundance Channel. Richardson's second film, How to Die in Oregon, premiered on January 23 at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In addition to directing the film, Richardson also acted as cinematographer, editor, and producer on How to Die in Oregon. The critically acclaimed film went on to win the Grand Jury Prize in the US Documentary competition. The film premiered on HBO on May 26, 2011. Richardson was the cinematographer on Irene Taylor Brodsky's documentary short film, Saving Pelican 895, which aired on HBO on April 20, 2011.
Joel Goodman is an American film score composer.
Nicholas Britell is an American film and television composer. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and a Grammy Award. He has received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), and Adam McKay's Don't Look Up (2021). He also scored McKay's The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). He is also known for scoring Battle of the Sexes (2017), Cruella (2021), and She Said (2022).
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Just, Melvin: Just Evil is a 2000 American documentary film by James Ronald Whitney about his grandfather, Melvin Just, and the devastating consequences of the sexual abuse that Just inflicted on their family. The film premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO on April 22, 2001. The film was well received overall; critic Roger Ebert called Just, Melvin "one of the most powerful documentaries I've seen."
Beware the Slenderman is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky about the Slender Man stabbing. It premiered at South by Southwest in March 2016 and was broadcast on HBO on January 23, 2017.
Believer is a 2018 American documentary that examines the intersection between LGBT people and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through the eyes of Dan Reynolds, lead singer of pop rock band Imagine Dragons. It focuses on his efforts to organize the LOVELOUD Festival in Orem, Utah in support of Utah LGBTQ youth.
The 2019 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 24 to February 3, 2019. The first lineup of competition films was announced on November 28, 2018.
The Oslo Diaries is a 2018 Israeli-Canadian documentary directed by Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan about Middle Eastern peace talks at the Oslo Accords in the 1990s between Israel and Palestine. The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and had its broadcast debut on HBO September 13, 2018.
Karim Amer is an Egyptian-American film producer and director. He worked on The Square (2013) and The Great Hack (2019); the former was the first Egyptian film to earn an Academy Award nomination and went on to win three Emmy Awards, while the latter got nominated for an Emmy and a BAFTA Award. In 2020, he produced and directed The Vow, an HBO documentary series about the self-improvement group, NXIVM. In 2022, he produced and directed Flight/Risk for Amazon Studios, revolving around whistleblowers at Boeing.
I Am: Celine Dion is a 2024 American documentary film directed by Irene Taylor, which centers around Canadian singer Celine Dion. The film details Dion's life, career accomplishments and battle with stiff-person syndrome. It premiered in New York City on 17 June 2024 and was given a limited theatrical release on 21 June 2024 by Amazon MGM Studios through the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It became available for streaming on 25 June 2024, on Amazon Prime Video. In Francophone countries, the film was titled Je suis: Céline Dion. It received rave reviews from critics, who called it a raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar's struggle with a life-altering illness. I Am: Celine Dion became the number one movie on Amazon Prime Video worldwide. The I Am: Celine Dion soundtrack was released on 21 June 2024.