Taggart Siegel is an American documentary filmmaker. For 30 years, he has produced and directed Emmy-nominated, award-winning documentaries and dramas that reflect cultural diversity. He is co-founder of Collective Eye Films, a nonprofit media production and distribution organization.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John (2005) has won 31 international film festival awards, [1] including the 2005 Nashville Film Festival Reel Current Award selected by Al Gore. [2] The film was featured on Independent Lens. [3]
The Disenchanted Forest (1999) follows endangered orphan orangutans on the island of Borneo as they are rehabilitated and returned to their rainforest home. It centres on the three main Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) projects - Wanariset, Nyaru Menteng and Mawas. It is narrated by Brooke Shields. [4]
The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America and Between Two Worlds follow the story of Hmong people adapting to life in America. Both films have aired on Public Broadcasting Corporation. Between Two Worlds was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2004. [5]
| Year | Film | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | Bitter Harvest | Director/Producer/DP/Editor |
| 1986 | Between Two Worlds | Director/Producer/Editor |
| 1988 | Blue Collar and Buddha | Director/Producer |
| 1990 | Heart Broken In Half | Director/Producer/Editor |
| 1999 | The Disenchanted Forest | Producer/DP |
| 2001 | The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America | Director/Producer/DP/Editor |
| 2005 | The Real Dirt on Farmer John | Director/Producer/DP |
| 2010 | Queen of the Sun | Director/Producer |
| 2016 | Seed: The Untold Story | Director |
| Year | Film | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Affliction | Director/Producer/DP/Editor |
| 1989 | Ember Days | Director/Producer/Editor |
| 1994 | Body Memories | Director/Producer |
| 1995 | Shadow of the Pepper Tree | Director/Producer |
| 1996 | Destroying Angel | Producer |
| 1998 | The Beloved | Producer |
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.
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.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a 2005 documentary film directed by Taggart Siegel about the life of Midwestern farmer John Peterson, operator of Angelic Organics. It tells the history of the eccentric farmer's family farm in rural Caledonia, Illinois.
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.
Byron Patrick Hurt is an American activist, lecturer, writer, and award-winning documentary filmmaker. In 2010, he hosted the Emmy-nominated television show, Reel Works with Byron Hurt. His documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and broadcast nationally on PBS in 2007. His film Soul Food Junkies received the Best Documentary Award at the 2012 American Black Film Festival and aired on PBS' Independent Lens in January 2013.
Margaret Brown is an American film director who has directed four feature length documentaries. Her film Descendant, about the descendants of survivors of the last ship to carry enslaved Africans into the United States, was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Awards.
Daniel Junge is an American documentary filmmaker. On February 26, 2012, he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film Saving Face, which he co-directed along with Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Tchavdar Georgiev is an American writer, producer, director and editor of fiction and non-fiction films, TV commercials and television programs.
Chris Morgan is a British-born ecologist, conservationist, TV host, filmmaker, podcaster, and author. His ecology and conservation work focuses on bears and other large carnivores worldwide. Over the last 25 years Morgan has worked as a wildlife researcher, wilderness guide, and environmental educator on every continent where bears exist.
Sung-Chang Leo Chiang is a Taiwanese-American documentary filmmaker.
Lindsey Dryden is a British film director, producer and writer.
Collective Eye Films is a non-profit documentary production and distribution organization based in Portland, Oregon. The organization was first established in 2004 in San Francisco, California, as a documentary production and distribution collective. Collective Eye Film fulfills its mission of "unearthing stories to make a difference", through continued production and the distribution of over 120 feature documentaries. Since 1984 Collective Eye Films has created documentary films that explore various social, political, environmental, and spiritual issues and causes.
Motto Pictures is a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York, specializing in producing and executive producing documentary features. Motto secures financing, builds distribution strategies, and creatively develops films, and has produced over 25 feature documentaries and won numerous awards.
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).
As Goes Janesville is a 2012 independent documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films and 371 Productions. It explores the future of the American middle class by focusing on the stories of Janesville, WI.
Beth Aala is a three-time award-winning American documentary filmmaker and film producer.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a 2018 American documentary film about the lives of black people in Hale County, Alabama. It is directed by RaMell Ross and produced by RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes, Su Kim, and is Ross's first nonfiction feature. The documentary is the winner of 2018 Sundance Film Festival award for U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision, 2018 Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Cinema Eye Honors Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was released in theaters on September 14, 2018, later aired on television as part of the PBS series Independent Lens, and eventually won a 2020 Peabody Award.
Julia Bell Reichert was an American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist. She was a co-founder of New Day Films. Reichert's filmmaking career spanned over 50 years as a director and producer of documentaries.
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon is an American documentary filmmaker. She is known for producing and editing films on cultural and social issues. In 2018, she was invited to become a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
Marilyn Ness is a documentary film producer and director based in New York City who made the social justice documentaries Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale (2010), Cameraperson (2016), and Charm City (2018). More recent projects include the Netflix Original documentary Becoming with Michelle Obama, which was nominated for four Primetime Emmy awards and Netflix Original documentary Dick Johnson is Dead, which was on the Academy Award Shortlist for Best Documentary in 2021. She is as of 2021 an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.