Jessica Edwards | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nationality | Canadian American |
| Occupation | Documentary filmmaker |
| Notable work | Mavis! , Seltzer Works |
Jessica Edwards is a Canadian-American filmmaker known for her documentary Mavis! about musician and civil rights figure Mavis Staples.
Edwards received a BFA in Cinema from Montreal’s Concordia University and a master's degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York City. [1] She began her career as a film publicist, working with filmmakers including Ang Lee, Sofia Coppola and David Cronenberg. [2] In 2010, she produced and directed her first short documentary Seltzer Works, about Kenny Gomberg, the last seltzer bottler in Brooklyn. [3] The film was broadcast on PBS as part of the documentary series POV in August, 2010. [3]
In 2013, Edwards edited and published Tell Me Something: Documentary Filmmakers, [4] a book of creative advice from 60 filmmakers including Errol Morris, Barbara Kopple, Albert Maysles, Martin Scorsese, Michael Moore, Gary Hustwit, Lucy Walker, Kim Longinotto, and others. The book's publication was funded through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. [5]
Edwards saw a live performance by gospel/soul singer Mavis Staples in Brooklyn in 2013, and was inspired to approach Staples about making a documentary about her and her family group, The Staple Singers. [6] Mavis! follows Staples' career, and examines gospel and folk music's part in the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, as well as the Staples family's friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. and Staples' continued focus on civil rights. [7] Edwards stated, "I didn’t want the civil rights movement to appear historical. To Mavis, the fight for equality didn’t end in the 60s, and I really wanted to emphasize that." [6] The film also featured interviews and performances by Bob Dylan, Prince, Levon Helm, Bonnie Raitt, Julian Bond, Jeff Tweedy, and Chuck D. [8]
The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, 2015, [9] and was acquired for US broadcast by HBO. [10] Edwards won a 2016 Peabody Award for the film, [11] and was named one of the "10 Documakers to Watch" by Variety . [12]
The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and R&B singing group. Roebuck "Pops" Staples, the patriarch of the family, formed the group with his children Cleotha, Pervis, and Mavis. Yvonne replaced her brother when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and again in 1970. They are best known for their 1970s hits "Respect Yourself", "I'll Take You There", "If You're Ready ", and "Let's Do It Again". While the family name is Staples, the group used "Staple" commercially.
Roebuck "Pops" Staples was an American gospel and R&B musician. A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 1970s", he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer. He was the patriarch and member of singing group The Staple Singers, which included his son Pervis and daughters Mavis, Yvonne, and Cleotha.
ITVS is a service in the United States which funds and presents documentaries on public television through distribution by PBS and American Public Television, new media projects on the Internet, and the weekly series Independent Lens on PBS. Aside from Independent Lens, ITVS funded and produced films for more than 40 television hours per year on the PBS series POV, Frontline, American Masters and American Experience. Some ITVS programs are produced along with organizations like Latino Public Broadcasting and KQED.
Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer and civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band The Staple Singers, of which she is the last surviving member. During her time in the group, she recorded the hit singles "I'll Take You There" and "Let's Do It Again". In 1969, Staples released her self-titled debut solo album.
Kamala Lopez is an American filmmaker, actress, writer, director, and political activist. She has had starring roles in Black Jesus, Medium, 24, Alias, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and 21 Jump Street. She has been a featured actress in films including Born in East L.A., Deep Cover, The Burning Season, Clear and Present Danger, Lightning Jack, and I Heart Huckabees.
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.
Regret to Inform is a 1998 American documentary film directed by Barbara Sonneborn. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature,. After airing on PBS' POV, Regret to Inform won a Peabody Award in 2000.
Women Make Movies is a non-profit feminist media arts organization based in New York City. Founded by Ariel Dougherty and Sheila Paige with Dolores Bargowski, WMM was first a feminist production collective that emerged from city-wide Women's Liberation meetings in September 1969. They produced four films by 1973. Dougherty and Paige incorporated the organization in March 1972 as a community based workshop to teach film to everyday women. A distribution service was also begun as an earned income program. In the mid-1970s a membership was created that screened and distributed members' work. In the early 1980s focus shifted to concentrate on distribution of independent films by and about women. WMM also provides production assistance to women filmmakers.
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.
Sheila Nevins is an American television producer and head of MTV Documentary Films division of MTV Studios. Previously, Nevins was the President of HBO Documentary Films. She has produced over 1,000 documentary films for HBO and is one of the most influential people in documentary filmmaking. She has worked on productions that have been recognized with 35 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, 42 Peabody Awards, and 26 Academy Awards. Nevins has won 31 individual Primetime Emmy Awards, more than any other person. She is also a member of the Peabody Awards board of directors, which is presented by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Best Kept Secret is a 2013 American documentary film that was directed by Samantha Buck and produced by Danielle DiGiacomo. The film aired as part of POV on PBS and focuses on a special education teacher who must find her students a place in the real world as they prepare to leave the public school system.
Virunga is a 2014 British documentary film directed by Orlando von Einsiedel. It focuses on the conservation work of park rangers within the Congo's Virunga National Park during the rise of the violent M23 Rebellion in 2012 and investigates the activity of the British oil company Soco International within the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Soco International ended up officially exploring oil opportunities in Virunga in April 2014. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on 17 April 2014. After airing on Netflix, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Citizenfour is a 2014 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras, concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. The film had its US premiere on October 10, 2014, at the New York Film Festival and its UK premiere on October 17, 2014, at the BFI London Film Festival. The film features Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, and was co-produced by Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, and Dirk Wilutzky, with Steven Soderbergh and others serving as executive producers. Citizenfour received critical acclaim upon release, and was the recipient of numerous accolades, including Best Documentary Feature at the 87th Academy Awards. This film is the third part to a 9/11 trilogy following My Country, My Country (2006) and The Oath (2010).
Whitney Dow, born in 1961, is a documentary filmmaker, producer, and director. He is best known for Two Towns of Jasper, a film about the murder of a black man committed by three white men in Jasper, Texas, which received a George Foster Peabody Award and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. Two Towns of Jasper was broadcast on the PBS documentary series POV in 2003. The film and the directors were featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Nightline. The film was the catalyst for a live town hall meeting, "America in Black and White," anchored by Ted Koppel.
Andrea Nix Fine is an American documentary film director whose film Inocente won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2013. She directs her films with her husband, Sean Fine. The Fines were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2007 for War/Dance, a story about the power of music to heal and transform the lives of children living in Uganda's war zone, and their 2013 HBO documentary Life According to Sam was honored with a Peabody and Emmy award. Nix is a 1991 graduate of Colby College. The Fines launched a boutique film studio Change Content to develop documentaries that affect way audiences feel about critical issues. Change Content's first film LFG (film) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was instrumental in the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team achieving equal pay.
Cynthia Hill is an American director and producer. She is most famous for creating, directing, and producing the television show A Chef's Life (2013–2018), as well as the documentary films Private Violence (2014), “The Guestworker” (2006), and “Tobacco Money Feeds My Family” (2003).
Cassie Jaye is an American film director, best known for directing the 2016 documentary film The Red Pill about the men's rights movement.
Kahane Cooperman is an American documentary filmmaker and television director and producer, whose 2016 documentary Joe's Violin was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.
Mavis! is a documentary film about musician and civil rights activist Mavis Staples, directed by Jessica Edwards. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, 2015, and was acquired for US broadcast by HBO.
Paul Bernon is an American businessman and film producer. His film Best Kept Secret was awarded a Peabody Award in 2014.