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American film director
Margaret Brown
Born Margaret Luce Brown
Education Occupation film director
Margaret Brown is an American film director who has directed four feature length documentaries. Her film
Descendant , about the descendants of survivors of the last ship to carry enslaved Africans into the United States, was shortlisted for the
2023 Academy Awards .
[1]
Early life and education
Brown was born and raised in
Mobile, Alabama . A
Murphy High School alumna,
[2] [
unreliable source? ]
[3] she earned her BA from
Brown University with concentrations in
Creative Writing and
Modern Culture and Media , and her MFA in Film from
New York University .
Career
Brown served as cinematographer for 99 Threadwaxing in 1999 and director for Ice Fishing in 2000.
[3] Her full-length debut
[4] was
Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt (2004) which chronicles the turbulent life of American singer-songwriter
Townes Van Zandt .
Time Out magazine listed it at number 7 on its "50 Greatest Music Films Ever".
[5]
She subsequently directed the feature documentary
The Order of Myths
[6] a 2008
Sundance Film Festival selection about the segregated
Mardi Gras celebration of
Mobile, Alabama .
[7] The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. It won many awards
[8]
[9] including a
Peabody Award ,
[10] a Cinematic Vision Award at the
Silverdocs Documentary Festival
[11] and
Truer Than Fiction Award
[12] at the
Independent Spirit Awards .
In 2014, Brown directed the feature documentary
The Great Invisible
[13]
[14]
[15] which won the
SXSW Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and received an
Emmy nomination
[16] for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and aired on
Independent Lens on
PBS in April 2015.
[17]
[18] The Great Invisible features the
BP oil spill in the Gulf in 2010 and
Deepwater Horizon oil spill aftermath .
[19]
Brown's documentary film, Descendant , explores issues of equity and justice facing descendants of the last US slave ship
Clotilda , as well as the discovery of the sunken ship in 2019. It premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2022.
[20] The film began its distribution in 2022 by
Netflix and
Higher Ground , the film production company of former president
Barack Obama and
Michelle Obama .
[21] The film was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Awards.
[1]
Filmography
Year
Title
Notes
2004
Be Here to Love Me
[4]
2008
The Order of Myths
[6]
2014
The Great Invisible
[13]
Emmy nomination for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking
[16]
2022
Descendant
[20]
Special Jury Award for Impact for Creative Vision, 2022 Sundance Film Festival
[22]
Honors and awards
Brown was nominated a Cultural Ambassador[
citation needed ] for Documentary Filmmaking from the United States to
Colombia ,
Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan and holds fellowships from
United States Artists
[23] and
The MacDowell Colony .
[24]
References
^
a
b Verhoeven, Beatrice (2023-01-05).
"Oscars: Tales of Artistry, Environmental Activism and Political Struggle Lead the Documentary Feature Race" . The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 2023-01-27 .
^
Margaret Luce Brown Murphy High School Alumni
^
a
b
"The Alumnus newsletter May 2015, Murphy High School Alumni Association" (PDF) . Murphyalumni.org . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
a
b
"Margaret Brown Films" . 22 October 2012. Archived from
the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^ Calhoun, Dave.
"50 greatest music films ever" .
Time Out London .
Archived from the original on 2015-02-20. Retrieved 2015-10-06 .
^
a
b
"Independent Lens . THE ORDER OF MYTHS . The Film – PBS" . Pbs.org . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
"monsters and Critics: The Order of Myths - Movie Review" . Archived from
the original on 30 October 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2022 .
^
"Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film – News" . Chlotrudis.org . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
"Filmmaker Magazine – Festival Ambassador" . Filmmakermagazine.com . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
"Independent Lens: The Order of Myths" . Peabodyawards.com . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
"Detail view of Movies Page" . Afi.com . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
"Meet the 12 Film Independent Fellows Joining the Academy – Film Independent" . Filmindependent.org . 2 September 2016. Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
a
b
The Great Invisible at
IMDb
^ DP/30: The Oral History Of Hollywood (30 October 2014).
"The Great Invisible, Margaret Brown" . Retrieved 9 July 2017 – via YouTube. {{
cite web }}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link )
^ The Aspen Institute (5 September 2014).
"The Great Invisible (Post-Screening Discussion)" . Retrieved 9 July 2017 – via
YouTube .
^
a
b
"Nominees/Winners" . Emmys.com . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
"Film Awards Past Winners" .
South by Southwest .
Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2015-10-06 .
^
"The Great Invisible (Independent Lens)" .
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences .
Archived from the original on 2015-10-06. Retrieved 2015-10-06 .
^ Callum, Paul (24 December 2014).
"Going Deep" . Texasmonthly.com . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
a
b Daniels, Robert (22 January 2022).
" 'Descendant' Review: Africatown Documentary Rectifies Black Erasure by Filling Historical Gaps" . Indie Wire . Retrieved 29 January 2022 .
^ Jackson, Angelique (29 January 2022).
"Netflix, Higher Ground Acquires Sundance Award Winner 'Descendant' " . Variety.com . Retrieved 29 January 2022 .
^ Debruge, Peter (28 January 2022).
"Sundance 2022 Winners: From 'Nanny' and 'Navalny' to Crowd-Pleaser 'Cha Cha Real Smooth,' Indie Fest Spreads the Wealth" . Variety.com . Retrieved 29 January 2022 .
^
"Margaret Brown" . Unitedstatesartists.org . Retrieved 9 July 2017 .
^
recent MacDowell Colony Fellows "... nearly completed her first feature film, which is based in the world of her second documentary The Order of Myths for which she completed a second draft. She used the time to get feedback from other filmmakers and readers and to prepare some of the interviews for the hybrid aspect of her film. She also worked on developing documentary projects."
External links