MaximsNews Columnist Rory Kennedy

Available for Media Interviews: RoryKennedy@MaximsNews.com 

UNITED NATIONS / www.MaximsNews.com, UN/ -- March 2007 -- Rory Kennedy's powerful documentary GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB was recently released by HBO, RORY KENNEDY’S "Ghosts of ABU GHRAIB"-TORTURE in IRAQ: HBO, THUR., 22 FEB.  

The award-winning producer, director, and writer, Rory Kennedy is co-founder of Moxie Firecracker Films, an independent documentary production company that she runs with partner, Liz Garbus (The Farm). 

Kennedy has produced and/or directed documentaries for HBO, PBS, Lifetime Television, A&E, Court TV, The Oxygen Network and The Learning Channel, covering a variety of topics including the global AIDS crisis, human rights, domestic abuse, poverty, drug addiction, labor struggle and political corruption.  

Most recently, Kennedy produced and directed The Homestead Strike as part of the History Channel’s ground-breaking series, Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. 

She also Executive Produced Street Fight, which follows the controversial 2002 Mayoral Race between Sharpe James and Cory Booker in Newark, New Jersey. Street Fight earned a 2006 Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary, as well as numerous awards on the 2005 festival circuit, including Audience Awards at the Tribeca Film Festival and SilverDocs, as well as the Grand Jury Prize at Hot Docs.

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 at a number of festivals, including the American Film Institute and The 1999 Chicago International Film Festival, and garnered 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. 

It was nominated for a Non-Fiction Primetime Emmy Award. 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 . 

Rory Kennedy also directed and produced the Emmy nominated series Pandemic:  Facing AIDS, which premiered at the Barcelona World AIDS conference on July 8, 2002, and aired as a five-part series on HBO in June of 2003.  

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 with AIDS. 

The film was released theatrically and was nominated for two Prime Time Emmy Awards.  Pandemic is accompanied by a book, Cd, website, traveling exhibition, and educational materials. 

In 2003, Kennedy produced and directed A Boy’s Life, the story of a young boy and his family in rural in Mississippi . The film premiered to rave reviews at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival and was awarded the Best Documentary prize at the Woodstock Film Festival. The film was later broadcast on HBO. 

Her next film for HBO, Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable, aired on September 9, 2004. The film takes a “what if” look at the catastrophic consequences of a radioactive release at the Indian Point Nuclear Energy Center, located 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan.    

 Moxie Firecracker, Inc.

Since Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus co-founded Moxie Firecracker Films in 1998, they have pursued their unique filmmaking vision, producing documentaries that illuminate larger social issues by telling the stories of everyday people. 

Kennedy and Garbus’ first joint venture, Different Moms, a one-hour documentary about mentally retarded parents raising normally developed children, aired on Lifetime Television in April 1999. Recently they completed a short documentary for Cinemax titled Xiara’s Song, about a young girl coming to terms with her father’s 10-year jail sentence. 

Garbus and Kennedy are also responsible for the 2002 feature documentary, The Execution of Wanda Jean, which premiered in the Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival and aired later on HBO’s America Undercover series. 

The film tells the story of Wanda Jean Allen, a twelve-year inhabitant of Oklahoma ’s three-woman death row, the first black woman to be executed in America in the last fifty years. 

The film opened theatrically at the Quad Cinema in New York , won the Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award and was nominated for Best Documentary by NAMIC (National Association of Minorities in Communications). New York Magazine called it a "broad, gripping, and tragic piece of Americana ."

Additionally, Kennedy and Garbus directed and produced The Changing Face of Beauty, a film that examines our cultural myths and standards of beauty (Lifetime Television, March 2000), All Kinds of Families, a film about alternative families (Lifetime Television, February 2001), Healthy Start, a film about the state of pre-natal healthcare in America (Lifetime Television, January 2001), and Speak Truth to Power, a series of PSAs highlighting the accomplishments of several human rights activists (Court TV, October 2001). 

Kennedy also produced Juvies, a documentary about juvenile justice (A&E), and The Travelers, which follows a group of disenfranchised young adults as they hop freight trains across the country (MTV), as well as Sixteen, a four-part series of one-hour documentary films for The Oxygen Network, which featured a cross-section of teenage girls in their most crucial and volatile year of adolescence (Oxygen, 2002) and girlhood, a film about violent juvenile offenders at Maryland’s only all-female juvenile detention facility (The Learning Channel, 2003).

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. In addition to Fire in Our House, Kennedy directed, produced and wrote Women of Substance, a documentary about the many problems 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 has served on the Board of Directors for a number of non-profit organizations including The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, The Legal Action Center 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. 

She 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 maintains an active speaking schedule and recently 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’s Women’s Crisis Services, Dayton Museum of Art, 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 and the Museum of Television and Radio. She has also served as a judge for a number of festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and, just recently, at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Kennedy’s work has been featured in numerous national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles 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.

RORY KENNEDY FILMOGRAPHY

FIRE IN OUR HOUSE

(Director & Producer, with Vanessa Vadim)

A 10-minute video illustrating the impact that needle-exchange programs have had on intravenous drug users, their families and the community. (Early work.)

WOMEN OF SUBSTANCE

(Writer, Director & Producer, with Robin Smith)

Narrated by Joanne Woodward, WOMEN OF SUBSTANCE deals with the sensitive topic of mothers trying to reconcile their substance abuse with their responsibility as parents, both before and after their children are born.  (Early work.)

EPIDEMIC AFRICA

(Director & Producer)

A short educational film that examines the impact of the AIDS epidemic on women and children in Africa .  (White House Office of National AIDS Policy, ABC Nightly News and NBC News, 1999).

DIFFERENT MOMS

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

Chronicles the experiences of three sets of mentally handicapped parents, all of whom are negotiating the joys and pitfalls of raising normally developed children.   (Lifetime Television, 1999)

AMERICAN HOLLOW

(Director & Producer)

Award-winning profile of an extended family living in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia .  (HBO, 1999)

THE CHANGING FACE OF BEAUTY

(Director & Producer, with Liz Mermin & Liz Garbus)

Explores the experiences of women as they grow older and confront their assumed devaluation in society, finding new ways to celebrate their wisdom and beauty.  (Lifetime Television, 2000)

JUVIES

(Producer, with Jesse Moss)

A unique American coming of age story, the film follows three troubled young men on their journey through Baltimore ’s juvenile justice system.  (A&E Television, 2000)

AMERICA :  UP IN ARMS

(Director & Producer, with Liz Mermin & Liz Garbus)

A film about those who have lost family members to gun violence. The film played in over 300 cities on October 2, 2000 as part of the Alliance for Justice’s First Monday 2000: Unite to End Gun Violence campaign.  (2000)

ALL KINDS OF FAMILIES

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

An intimate look at alternative families in America .  (Lifetime Television, 2001)

HEALTHY START

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

Explores the state of prenatal care in the United States .  (Lifetime Television, 2001)

BODY OF EVIDENCE

(Producer)

Gives viewers a firsthand look at the cases and methodology of Florida ’s most celebrated criminal profiler. Pilot for a new series. (Court TV, 2001)

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER

(Director & Producer, with Liz Mermin & Liz Garbus)

A series of PSAs highlighting the achievements and sacrifices of several human rights activists. (Court TV, 2001)

THE EXECUTION OF WANDA JEAN

(Producer)

A film about the life-and-death battle of Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman to be put to death in the United States in the modern era. (HBO, 2002)

SIXTEEN

(Executive Producer, with Liz Garbus)

A four-part series of one-hour documentary films, which will feature a cross section of teenage girls at their most crucial and volatile year of adolescence. (The Oxygen Network, 2002)

TOGETHER:  STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

(Executive Producer/Producer, with Liz Garbus)

An investigative examination of women and domestic violence. (Lifetime Television, 2003)

HIDDEN CRISIS:  WOMEN & AIDS

(Producer, with Liz Garbus)

Explores the stories and issues behind the numbers, examining the factors that have led to a new front in the battle against the AIDS epidemic:  a women’s battle. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2002)

PANDEMIC:  FACING AIDS

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

A feature-length film and five-part series about the current health crisis in India , Thailand , Uganda , Brazil and Russia .  Premiered at the Barcelona World AIDS Conference in July, 2002. The film and series are accompanied by a book, CD, website, traveling photo exhibition, and educational material.  (HBO, 2003)

THE NAZI OFFICER’S WIFE

(Producer, with Liz Garbus)

The true story of Edith Hahn Beer, who had to marry a Nazi officer in order to escape the Holocaust. (A&E, 2003)

GIRLHOOD

(Producer, with Liz Garbus)

A coming-of-age story of two girls, set against the backdrop of the juvenile justice system and the bleak streets of East Baltimore , MD. (TLC, 2004)

A BOY’S LIFE

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

The story of a young boy and his family in Eupora , Mississippi .  (HBO, 2004)    

INDIAN POINT:  IMAGINING THE UNIMAGINABLE

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

The film takes a “what if” look at the catastrophic consequences of a radioactive release at the Indian Point Nuclear Energy Center, located 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan. (HBO, 2004)

XIARA’S SONG

(Producer, with Liz Garbus)

Seven-year old Xiara is trying to come to grips with the fact that her father will be in prison for the next ten years.  XIARA’S SONG is the story of their relationship, played out through their mutual love of music. (HBO, 2004)

STREET FIGHT

(Executive Producer, with Liz Garbus)

Street Fight follows the bare-knuckles 2002 race for Mayor of Newark, NJ between 32 year-old newcomer, Cory Booker, and four-term incumbent, Sharpe James, the undisputed champion of New Jersey politics. (POV, 2005)

YO SOY BORICUA

(Producer, with Liz Garbus)

The directorial debut of actress Rosie Perez, Yo Soy interweaves humorous, fast-paced verite filmmaking with a spirited investigation of the shocking history of American involvement in Puerto Rico (IFC, 2006)

THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE

(Director & Producer, with Liz Garbus)

On July 6, 1892, striking workers at Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead steel mill faced off in a gun battle with 300 Pinkerton detectives hired as strike-breakers. The strike and its aftermath have come to represent an era defined by corporate greed. (A&E, 2006)

-- Award-winning producer, director, and writer, Rory Kennedy is co-founder of Moxie Firecracker Films, an independent documentary production company that she runs with partner, Liz Garbus (The Farm). 

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