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About the Filmmaker
Award-winning producer, director, and writer, Rory Kennedy is co-Founder of Moxie Firecracker Films Inc., an independent documentary production company that she runs with partner Liz Garbus. Kennedy has produced documentaries for HBO, Lifetime Television, A&E, Court TV, The Oxygen Network and The Learning Channel, on topics including the global AIDS crisis, human rights, domestic abuse, poverty, and drug addiction.
In 1999, Kennedy's film American Hollow brought her filmmaking to the attention of critics and the viewing public. The story of a tight-knit Appalachian family caught between century-old tradition and the encroaching modern world, American Hollow premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Subsequently, it won Best Documentary prizes from the American Film Institute and the Newport and Northampton Film Festivals, and won The Gold Hugo Award at The 1999 Chicago International Film Festival, also garnering an Independent Spirit Award nomination. After its critically acclaimed run at New York City's Film Forum, HBO broadcast the film as part of the America Undercover series, garnering it a nomination for a Non-Fiction Primetime Emmy Award(r). Additionally, Little, Brown & Co. published Kennedy's companion book, American Hollow in conjunction with the film's broadcast premier.
The film also generated an American Hollow cultural exhibit, featuring the photographs of Steve Lehman, and has been shown at numerous museums, including The National Gallery of Art, The Dayton Art Institute, and The Norton Museum in Palm Beach. Elements from the book and exhibit have been combined and posted on The Washington Post website's electronic gallery.
Kennedy most recently directed and produced, Pandemic: Facing AIDS, which premiered at the Barcelona World AIDS conference on July 8, 2002. Pandemic follows the lives of five people living with AIDS in different regions of the world and uses their experiences to put faces behind the numbers and to connect audiences with the heartache and triumph of living under the extreme conditions that AIDS enforces. The film is accompanied by a book, cd, website, traveling exhibition, and educational material.
Early Film Work
Before launching Moxie Firecracker Films, Kennedy served as the Executive Director of MayDay Media, the non-profit production and distribution division of Video/Action Fund. While at MayDay, Kennedy developed, produced and wrote social issue video projects, including the award-winning Fire in Our House, a documentary video and outreach campaign about needle exchange programs and AIDS prevention in the U. S. Fire in Our House won awards including the CINE Golden Eagle, the top prize at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival, and the Silver Apple for the National Education Media Network. Kennedy also directed, produced and wrote Women of Substance, a film illustrating the obstacles facing pregnant and parenting drug addicts seeking treatment. The film was broadcast on PBS stations nation-wide, including WNET-New York and WETA-Washington, DC, and won the Gold Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award, the Gold CINDY Award, and First Place at the NCFR Media Awards Competition. Kennedy was also the Education Outreach Director at Video/Action Fund, and used the videos she produced in unique grassroots distribution and awareness campaigns.
Public Speaking and Social Activism
Rory Kennedy is on the Board of Directors for a number of non-profit organizations including The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial and the Project Return Foundation. She served as Chairperson of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Associate Trustees Program from 1993-1995 and has served as a member of the Board of the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation since 1999, and served on the Advisory Board for the Fund for the University of Namibia in 1993. She also initiated and helped develop the Teacher Transfer Program between the U.S. and Namibia in the fall of 1990 after her work there at the Dobra Resettlement Camp. Kennedy was a member of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights delegations during human rights trips to the following countries: South Africa (1996); South Korea (1989); Japan (1989); South Africa (1989); El Salvador (1988); and Poland (1987).
Kennedy has been the keynote speaker for various lecture series, university events and community organization functions including: The Wittenburg Lecture Series, The Museum of National Art, New Jersey Women's Crisis Services, Dayton Museum of Art, The Sisters of Charity Hospital in Maine, University of San Diego and the University of Pennsylvania. She was also the principle speaker for the Women of Substance Education Outreach Campaign (1992-1994) and the Fire in Our House Outreach Campaign (1995-1996); surrogate speaker for Bill Clinton's Presidential Campaign in Pennsylvania and New York in 1992; speaker at the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards in Washington, DC (1986-1997), the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Delegation trips (1987-1996), and the United Farm Workers Union in New England (1988).
Kennedy has also spoken on a number of film-related events, including panels and seminars at the Sundance Film Festival, the Doubletake Film Festival, the Museum of Television and Radio and has served as a judge for the DocFest documentary film festival in New York. Kennedy's work has been featured in numerous national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the LA Times and she has appeared on numerous talk, news and radio programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Rosie O'Donell, The Charlie Rose Show, The Today Show, CNN and NPR.
During the summer of 1990, Kennedy served as assistant to Bella Abzug at the Women's Foreign Policy Council. During the summer of 1989, she was Coordinator for the U.S. Congressional and Business Delegation and a reporter for the Church Information Monitoring Service covering "Free and Fair" elections in Namibia. She graduated from Brown University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Women's Studies.
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