Sally Rubin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 9 May Newton, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Director, Editor, Producer, Professor |
| Years active | 1999 - present |
Sally Rubin is an American documentary film director, producer, editor, and professor. [1] [2] She is best known for her work on the documentary films Mama Has a Mustache, Hillbilly, Deep Down, Life on the Line, and The Last Mountain. [3] [4] [5]
Rubin was born in Newton, Massachusetts. She graduated from the Tufts University and Stanford University. [6] She is a full-time documentary film professor at Chapman University. [7]
Her documentary, The Last Mountain, about her father's death in a hiking accident, was broadcast on PBS nationally and had a broad festival run including the Mill Valley Film Festival. [8] In 2010, she co-directed the feature documentary, Deep Down, along with Jen Gilomen. The film was funded by the Independent Television Service, the MacArthur Foundation, Chicken and Egg Pictures, and the Fledgling Fund, and tells the story of two friends in eastern Kentucky who find themselves divided over mountaintop removal coal mining near their homes. [9] The documentary aired as part of PBS’ Emmy-winning documentary series Independent Lens in 2010-2011. [10] Rubin and Gilomen received an Emmy Award nomination in the category of New Approaches in Documentary Filmmaking for Deep Down's Virtual Mine project. [9] Deep Down traveled around the world as part of the United States Department's American Documentary Showcase and premiered at the Big Sky Film Festival. [11] [12]
In 2014, Rubin co-directed Life on the Line, along with Jen Gilomen, which premiered at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and aired nationally on PBS. [13] She directed and produced the documentary film, Hillbilly, with Ashley York, about media stereotypes of Appalachia and their impact on the increasing political and cultural divide in the United States. The film premiered in 2018 at the Nashville Film Festival and played at DOC NYC, [14] won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival, won Michael Moore's award for Best Documentary at the Traverse City Film Festival, and played as the Opening Night Movie at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. [15] [16] [17] Hillbilly was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was picked up by the Orchard/1091 Media for distribution, and was bought by Hulu and Al Jazeera. [18] Rubin is a judge for the Emmy Awards and the International Documentary Awards.[ citation needed ]
Rubin associate produced the Frontline series Country Boys , directed by David Sutherland, and edited Robert Greenwald’s documentary Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers . [19]
In 2021, Rubin directed and produced the animated documentary short, Mama Has a Mustache, about youth and gender identity which premiered at Outfest and screened at Telluride's MountainFilm and the 65th annual San Francisco International Film Festival. [20] [21] In 2021, Rubin co-directed Appalachian Futures, a piece commissioned by the Smithsonian. [22]
| Year | Film | Director | Editor | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Ga-Ga Cha | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2003 | Cut | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2003 | Body Politics | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2004 | The Last Mountain | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2006 | Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers | Yes | ||
| 2007 | The ACLU Freedom Files | Yes | ||
| 2007 | RiverWebs | Yes | ||
| 2010 | Independent Lens - Deep Down | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2010 | Deep Down: A Story from the Heart of Coal Country | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2010 | Breaking Through | Yes | ||
| 2011 | Among Giants | Yes | ||
| 2011 | Without a Home | Yes | Yes | |
| 2011 | The Modern Man | Yes | ||
| 2011 | Blow! | Yes | ||
| 2014 | Life on the Line | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2014 | Culture Over Everything | Yes | ||
| 2014 | The Last Orchard | Yes | ||
| 2016 | After Coal | Yes | ||
| 2018 | Hillbilly | Yes | Yes | |
| 2019 | Relentless | Yes | ||
| 2019 | A Long Series of Right Now | Yes | ||
| 2019 | Slab City | Yes | ||
| 2019 | That Was Ray | Yes | ||
| 2020 | Les Mystères | Yes | ||
| 2021 | Above Snakes | Yes | ||
| 2021 | Bisbee Always Survives | Yes | ||
| 2021 | Mama Has a Mustache | Yes | Yes | |
| 2021 | Appalachian Futures | Yes | Yes | |
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground. In the United States, this method of coal mining is conducted in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. Explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills".
Ric Burns is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. He has written, directed and produced historical documentaries since the 1990s, beginning with his collaboration on the celebrated PBS series The Civil War (1990), which he produced with his older brother Ken Burns and wrote with Geoffrey Ward.
Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace is a 2007 American animated documentary written and directed by Brett Morgen that tells the story of the Chicago Eight. The Chicago Eight were charged by the United States federal government with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and countercultural protests in Chicago, Illinois during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Henry-Alex Rubin is an Academy Award-nominated American filmmaker and Emmy Award-winning commercial director.
Arthur Dong is an American filmmaker and author whose work centers on Asia America and anti-gay prejudice. He was raised in San Francisco, California, graduating from Galileo High School in June 1971. He received his BA in film from San Francisco State University and also holds a Directing Fellow Certificate from the American Film Institute Center for Advanced Film Studies. In 2007, SFSU named Dong its Alumnus of the year “for his continued success in the challenging arena of independent documentary filmmaking and his longstanding commitment to social justice."
Appalachia is a socio-economic region of the Eastern United States. Home to over 25 million people, the region includes mountainous areas of 13 states: Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, as well as the entirety of West Virginia.
Burning the Future: Coal in America is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by David Novack. The film focuses on the impacts of mountaintop mining in the Appalachians, where mountain ridges are scraped away by heavy machinery to access coal seams below, a process that is cheaper and faster than traditional mining methods but is damaging to the environment. Some environmental problems discussed in the film include disfigured mountain ranges, extinct plant and animal species, toxic groundwater, and increased flooding. The film's run time is 89 minutes. In 2012, it was rereleased in a shorter, updated version, that was created for public broadcast on PBS. This new version of the film's run time is 56 minutes.
Mountaintop Removal is a 2007 documentary film directed by Michael O'Connell. The film explores how mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia has affected local communities. Filmed over a two-year period, Mountain Top Removal features community advocates, such as Ed Wiley, Larry Gibson, Julia Bonds, Maria Gunnoe, and Mountain Justice Summer volunteers, in their efforts to oppose the destruction of Southern Appalachia's natural landscape. The film includes commentary from Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, geologists Dr. William Schlesinger and Dr. Peter Taft, and also Bill Raney, President of the West Virginia Coal Association. The film won the Reel Current Award at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival. Mountaintop Removal also received a Jury award at the 2008 Wild and Scenic Film Festival, Audience award at the 2008 Woods Hole Film Festival and was screened at The Lincoln Center on Earth Day April 22, 2008. The film is currently being distributed nationwide on PBS through NETA. The film's soundtrack includes music by Jim Lauderdale, Donna the Buffalo, John Specker and Sarah Hawker.
The Mountaintop is a play by American playwright Katori Hall. It is a fictional depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last night on earth set entirely in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on the eve of his assassination in 1968.
Tami Kashia Gold is a documentary filmmaker, visual artist and educator. She is also a professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York in the Department of Film and Media Studies.
The Appalachian region and its people have historically been stereotyped by observers, with the basic perceptions of Appalachians painting them as backwards, rural, and anti-progressive. These widespread, limiting views of Appalachia and its people began to develop in the post-Civil War; Those who "discovered" Appalachia found it to be a very strange environment, and depicted its "otherness" in their writing. These depictions have persisted and are still present in common understandings of Appalachia today, with a particular increase of stereotypical imagery during the late 1950s and early 1960s in sitcoms. Common Appalachian stereotypes include those concerning economics, appearance, and the caricature of the "hillbilly."
Malika Zouhali-Worrall is a British-Moroccan film director and editor.
Lindsey Dryden is a British film director, producer and writer.
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The city of Baltimore, Maryland includes a significant Appalachian population. The Appalachian community has historically been centered in the neighborhoods of Hampden, Pigtown, Remington, Woodberry, Lower Charles Village, Highlandtown, and Druid Hill Park, as well as the Baltimore inner suburbs of Dundalk, Essex, and Middle River. The culture of Baltimore has been profoundly influenced by Appalachian culture, dialect, folk traditions, and music. People of Appalachian heritage may be of any race or religion. Most Appalachian people in Baltimore are white or African-American, though some are Native American or from other ethnic backgrounds. White Appalachian people in Baltimore are typically descendants of early English, Irish, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh settlers. A migration of White Southerners from Appalachia occurred from the 1920s to the 1960s, alongside a large-scale migration of African-Americans from the Deep South and migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee. These out-migrations caused the heritage of Baltimore to be deeply influenced by Appalachian and Southern cultures.
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