DOC NYC Visionaries Tribute

Academy Award winning filmmaker Deborah Shaffer’s credits include: The Wobblies, recently added to the NFR; many human rights films, including Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements, Academy Award for Short Documentary;To Be Heard, Audience & Jury Awards at inaugural DOC NYC and Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack.  www.deborahshaffer.com

Martin Scorsese has interwoven documentary making throughout his distinguished career. His latest nonfiction work is Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story. Among his other acclaimed nonfiction films are The 50 Year Argument; George Harrison: Living in the Material World; No Direction Home: Bob Dylan; The Blues; My Voyage to Italy; The Last Waltz; A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies; Public Speaking; and Italianamerican. His latest project is the narrative feature The Irishman. [Biography from 2019]

Michael Apted is the director of the ground-breaking 7 Up series, a study of the British class system that brings forth a new film every seven years. The latest film in his series, 63 Up, presented by BritBox, will be released in fall 2019. His other documentaries include Married in America; Me & Isaac Newton; Moving the Mountain; Inspirations; Incident at Oglala; and Bring on the Night. [Biography from 2019]

Orlando Bagwell’s directing credits include Citizen King, A Hymn for Alvin Ailey, Malcolm X: Make It Plain, and two episodes in the landmark Eyes on the Prize series. Serving as a program officer at the Ford Foundation for nearly a decade, Bagwell established the $50 million JustFilms fund. He is currently finishing a documentary on Gil Scott-Heron. [Biography from 2018]

Wim Wenders directed the Oscar-nominated documentaries The Salt of the Earth, Pina and Buena Vista Social Club, along with nonfiction titles such as The Blues and Room 666 and celebrated fiction films such as Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire. His latest documentary is Pope Francis: A Man of His Word. [Biography from 2018]

Sheila Nevins is President of HBO Documentary Films and has overseen documentaries for the channel for over 30 years. She has supervised the production of over 1,000 documentary programs for HBO. As an executive producer or producer, she has received 32 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 News and Documentary Emmys, and 42 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s documentaries have gone on to win 26 Academy Awards. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book You Don’t Look Your Age… and Other Fairy Tales. [Biography from 2017]

Errol Morris has been a continuous innovator in the documentary form with films such as The B-Side, Gates of Heaven; Vernon, Florida; The Thin Blue Line; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control; Mr. Death; the Oscar-winning The Fog of War; and Standard Operating Procedure and the Netflix series Wormwood. His film Tabloid was the Closing Night Film of DOC NYC’s first year in 2010; and The Unknown Known was the Opening Night film of the 2013 festival. [Biography from 2017]

Stanley Nelson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, MacArthur “genius” Fellow, member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has multiple industry awards to his credit. Nelson is the director of documentary features including Freedom Riders, Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple and The Murder of Emmett Till. He is also co-founder of Firelight Media, a non-profit organization that provides technical education, funding and professional support to emerging documentarians. [Biography from 2016]

Jonathan Demme began his career as a writer and producer with Roger Corman in 1971 and has directed and produced more than 40 movies since. His films have been nominated for 20 Academy Awards, including Beloved, Melvin and Howard, Philadelphia, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Who Am I This Time?, Rachel Getting Married, The Manchurian Candidate, and Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the Oscar for Best Director in 1991. His documentaries and performance films include Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids, Cousin Bobby, The Agronomist, Haiti Dreams of Democracy, Stop Making Sense, Swimming to Cambodia, Neil Young Heart of Gold, Neil Young Trunk Show, Neil Young Journeys, Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains, I’m Carolyn Parker, The Good the Mad and the Beautiful, New Home Moves from the Lower 9th Ward, Tavis Smiley’s Been In the Storm Too Long and Enzo Avitabile Music Life.  [Biography from 2016]

Jon Alpert co-founded New York’s Downtown Community Television (DCTV), the country’s oldest non-profit community media center. He is the winner of 16 Emmy Awards and the recipient of four DuPont-Columbia Awards; his documentaries include One Year in the Life of Crime, Baghdad ER, and the Oscar-nominated shorts China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province and Redemption. Alpert’s latest film is Mariela Castro’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolution. [Biography from 2015]

Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker, having won for both Harlan County USA and American Dream. In 1991, Harlan County USA was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Kopple’s other celebrated films include Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson, Wild Man Blues, Shut Up & Sing, Running From Crazy, A Conversation With Gregory Peck, Hot Type: 150 Years of The Nation, and her latest, Miss Sharon Jones! [Biography from 2015]

Frederick Wiseman is a pioneer of observational documentary filmmaking, starting with his acclaimed 1967 debut Titicut Follies. He is the recipient of the George Polk Career Award and the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, among many honors. Wiseman has directed dozens of films, from early classics such as High School and Law and Order to recent works La Danse, Boxing Gym, Crazy Horse, At Berkeley, National Gallery, and his latest, In Jackson Heights. [Biography from 2015]