Marlon Troy Riggs was a Black gay filmmaker, educator, poet, and activist. He produced, wrote, and directed several documentary films, including Ethnic Notions, Tongues Untied, Color Adjustment, and Black Is...Black Ain't. His films examine past and present representations of race and sexuality in the United States. The Marlon Riggs Collection is open to the public at Stanford University Libraries.
Independent Lens is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of Independent Lens were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Howard, Maggie Gyllenhaal, America Ferrera, Mary-Louise Parker, and Stanley Tucci, who served two stints as host from 2012-2014.
POV is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) public television series which features independent nonfiction films. POV is an initialism for point of view.
Days of Waiting (1991) is a documentary short film directed, written and produced by Steven Okazaki about Estelle Ishigo, a Caucasian artist who went voluntarily to an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. The film was inspired by Ishigo's book, Lone Heart Mountain, and won an Academy Award for Best Documentary and a Peabody Award. It was presented on PBS by POV and the Center for Asian American Media.
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.
Flag Wars is a 2003 American documentary film about the conflict between two communities during the gentrification of a Columbus, Ohio neighborhood. Filmed in a cinéma vérité style, the film is an account of the tension between the two historically oppressed communities of African-Americans and gays in Columbus' Olde Towne East neighborhood. The film was nominated for an Emmy Award and won three awards, including a Peabody Award.
Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter is a 1994 American documentary film directed by Deborah Hoffmann, with her wife, Frances Reid, as cinematographer.
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..
Megan Mylan is an Oscar-winning documentary film director, known for her films Simple as Water, Lost Boys of Sudan and Smile Pinki.
Charley Trujillo is a Chicano novelist, editor, publisher, and filmmaker. He is known for his novel and documentary Soldados: Chicanos in Việt Nam.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. The film follows Daniel Ellsberg and explores the events leading up to the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the top-secret military history of the United States' involvement in Vietnam.
Best Kept Secret is a 2013 American documentary film 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.
My Perestroika is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Robin Hessman. It examines life during and after the USSR through the personal stories of five ordinary Russians, who speak about their Soviet childhood, the collapse of the USSR, and contemporary Russia.
Judith Ehrlich is an American film director, writer, and producer. Her work includes co-directing the 2009 documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America, which was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards, won the Special Jury Award at the IDFA, won a Peabody Award, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit In Nonfiction Filmmaking.
David Osit is an American documentary filmmaker, editor and composer. His documentaries include Mayor and Thank You for Playing.
Jessica Edwards is a Canadian-American filmmaker known for her documentary Mavis! about musician and civil rights figure Mavis Staples.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival is an annual film festival held by Human Rights Watch organization in more than 20 countries which previews human rights films and videos in commercial and archival theaters and on public and cable television. This film festival was established in 1988, in part to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of Human Rights Watch. After 3 years, it was resumed in 1991 and was presented annually until it ceased operations in 2024.
Tiffany Hsiung is a Canadian documentary filmmaker. She is most noted for her 2016 documentary film The Apology, which won a Peabody Award in 2019, and her 2020 short documentary film Sing Me a Lullaby, which won the Share Her Journey award at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, and the Canadian Screen Award for Best Short Documentary at the 9th Canadian Screen Awards in 2021.
Ken Schneider, ACE is a director, producer, and editor for PatchWorks Films, a production company in San Francisco. He has traveled and made films in Cuba for many years alongside wife and film collaborator, Marcia Jarmel. They co-directed Los Hermanos/The Brothers, which tells the story of virtuoso Afro-Cuban brothers living on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm, one in New York, the other in Havana. The film follows their parallel lives and poignant reunion through their momentous first performances together after so long apart.
This is a list of winners of the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for documentary features.
