A distinguished jury of some of the biggest names in news media, nonfiction filmmaking, scholarship, and show business award the Best Documentary Feature and Best New Documentary Filmmaker prizes. Learn more about the jury, which includes Liz Garbus, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Morgan Spurlock, and Brian Williams.
Liz Garbus
Liz Garbus, an Academy Award®-nominated director and producer, is one of America’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers. She cofounded Moxie Firecracker, Inc., an independent documentary production company, with filmmaker Rory Kennedy in 1998. Her most recent project, Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, premiered at Sundance this past January, and will be broadcast on HBO in July 2009. Other directorial credits include The Farm: Angola, USA, which was nominated for an Academy Award, the National Film Critics Award for best documentary, two Emmys, and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize; The Execution of Wanda Jean (Sundance Film Festival, HBO); The Nazi Officer’s Wife (A&E); Girlhood (Wellspring/TLC); Xiara’s Song (HBO); Yo soy Boricua, pa’que tu lo sepas for IFC, a film about Puerto Rican Culture codirected by Rosie Perez; and the feature-length film Coma for HBO. Ms. Garbus, along with Rory Kennedy, also executive produced the 2006 Academy Award®-nominated film Street Fight and produced Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which won the Emmy Award for best documentary in 2007.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is the author of In Search of Our Roots—which expands on his critically acclaimed multipart PBS documentary series, African American Lives—as well as the books The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (winner of the 1989 American Book Award), Colored People: A Memoir, and Finding Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own. His most recent documentary is Looking for Lincoln. Professor Gates is editor-in-chief of both www.theroot.com and the Oxford African American Studies Center. He previously produced and hosted two series for PBS, Wonders of the African World and America Beyond the Color Line. Professor Gates earned his MA and PhD in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and he is the recipient of 48 honorary degrees as well as a National Humanities Medal and a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award.
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is one of an elite group of artists who have won the Academy Award®, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony. She got her start onstage and was last seen on Broadway in 2008 in Xanadu. In 2005, she earned a Tony nomination for her return to the Lyceum Theatre, commemorating the 20th anniversary of her original one-woman show. Previously, she starred in the revivals of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. She won the Tony for producing Thoroughly Modern Millie. Whoopi earned an Oscar® nomination and a Golden Globe Award for her film debut in The Color Purple and won the Oscar® and a Golden Globe for Ghost. Her other films include Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Sister Act, Made in America, Boys on the Side, Ghosts of Mississippi, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Girl, Interrupted, The Lion King, and Rat Race. Whoopi is the moderator on ABC’s The View. She has appeared on numerous television series, specials, miniseries, and television movies, hosted her own late-night talk show, and has cohosted eight Comic Relief specials, four Academy Awards telecasts, and the 2008 Tony Awards.
In support of Stand Up to Cancer, Whoopi Goldberg Stands Up to Cancer. Stand up at su2c.org.
Morgan Spurlock
Morgan Spurlock’s first feature-length documentary, Super Size Me, won the Documentary Directing Award during its world premiere at Sundance. This Academy Award®-nominated film was named to more than 35 top-10 lists and received the inaugural WGA Award for best documentary screenplay. Spurlock then published his first nonfiction book, Don’t Eat This Book and launched his Manhattan-based film and television production company, Warrior Poets, in 2006. The company has since produced What Would Jesus Buy?, The Third Wave,and Spurlock’s own Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? In 2006, Warrior Poets partnered with Arts Alliance America to release films under the banner “Morgan Spurlock Presents.” These so far include the Independent Spirit Award nominee Chalk, Confessions of a Superhero, Czech Dream, Class Act, and The Future of Food. Spurlock has been the host, executive producer, and participant of three seasons of the FX series 30 Days, which has been nominated for a Producers Guild Award, won a GLAAD Award, and will be honored by the Television Academy Honors in April of this year. Most recently, Spurlock has been in post-production on his segment for the upcoming feature documentary adaptation of Freakonomics.
Brian Williams
Brian Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the single largest daily source of news in the United States. He has received six Edward R. Murrow Awards, seven Emmy Awards, the duPont-Columbia University Award, and the industry’s highest honor, the George Foster Peabody Award. Most were awarded for his work in New Orleans while covering Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. In 2006, Time magazine named Brian Williams one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Williams is a former NBC News chief White House correspondent and former anchor and managing editor of The News With Brian Williams on MSNBC and CNBC. He has covered numerous nominating conventions and presidential campaigns and elections, and has moderated several presidential debates. He was the first NBC News correspondent to reach Baghdad during the 2003 war in Iraq, and was part of a US Army helicopter mission that was forced down by enemy fire south of Najaf. He nonetheless has returned to Iraq and Afghanistan several times. A native of Middletown, New Jersey, Williams attended Catholic University and George Washington University in Washington, DC. He is a former White House intern and has been awarded seven honorary degrees.
In support of Stand Up to Cancer, Brian Williams Stands Up to Cancer. Stand up at su2c.org.
