Ellen Spiro
Ellen Spiro | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | New Brunswick, New Jersey, US |
| Parent(s) | Jack and Marilyn Spiro of New Orleans, Louisiana. |
Ellen Spiro is an American documentary filmmaker. She is a producer and director of the television documentary Are the Kids Alright?, which won an Emmy Award in 2005.[1]
Spiro is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in documentary, experimental film, and music film production in the Department of Radio-TV-Film.[2] She is a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley.[2]
Career
Spiro's work grew out of the AIDS activist movement and tradition of grassroots video activism. Her early work was shot on a compact Sony palmcorder and highlighted gay and lesbian stories.[3] One of her earliest award-winning works, Diana's Hair Ego, was the first small format video to be broadcast on national television.[3] Her work was presented twice in the Museum of Modern Art.
She created the 10 Under 10 Film Festival in Austin, TX.[4]
In 2006, she was awarded an artist's residency at the Bellagio Center, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, in Bellagio, Italy.[5] She worked with Phil Donahue on Body of War, a film about paralyzed Iraq War veteran Tomas Young, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won a 'People's Choice Award' and the 'Audience Award for Best Documentary' at the Hamptons International Film Festival.[6] It was shortlisted for nomination for an Academy Award in 2007.[7] In December, Body of War was named Best Documentary of 2007 by the National Board of Review.[8]
She was recognized by students as one of the top 10 professors at the University of Texas in 2018.[9]
Films
- Fixing the Future (2010–2012)
- Body of War (2007)
- Troop 1500 (2005)
- Are the Kids Alright? (2003)
- Atomic Ed and the Black Hole (2002)
- Roam Sweet Home (1996)
- Greetings From Out Here (1993)
- Diana's Hair Ego (1991)
- Women on the Line: The Effect of Deindustrialization on Women in Buffalo (1988)
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