Helen Whitney

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helen Whitney (* 20th century) is an American film director , film producer , documentary filmmaker and screenwriter who in 1978 with the documentary - short film First Edition for an Oscar nominee.

biography

Career, lectures

Whitney grew up in New York, where she attended Chapin School. In 1965 she received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Sarah Lawrence College and in 1967 her Masters in Victorian Literature from the University of Chicago . As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in 2009, she taught at Flagler College, Roanoke College, and Mary's College.

She later held seminal lectures at Yale University , the University of California, Berkeley , Harvard Divinity School , the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Bellarmine University, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice , Syracuse University , the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary as well as at other institutes. In 2012 she presented the William Belden Noble Lectures at Harvard University .

Whitney has also given lectures at the Corcoran Gallery of Art , a private art museum in Washington, DC, the Minneapolis Institute of Art , the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale , Arizona, the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville , Kentucky, and the Cathedral in Washington, DC

From 1986 to 1991, Whitney was a director and chairman of the Film Forum board, and is a board member of the New York Association of Women in Film and Television and a founding member of New York City Church. Whitney is divorced from Benno C. Schmidt Jr., 20th President of Yale University , and has a daughter born in 1981.

Film work

Whitney's documentaries and feature films have mostly aired on PBS , HBO , ABC and NBC . The spectrum of her films covers topics such as youth gangs , American presidential candidates, a Trappist monastery in Massachusetts, mental illnesses, the McCarthy era in the United States, the class structure of Great Britain, dealing with Pope John Paul II or Richard Avedon , one of the most important 20th century photographers.

Whitney's first film, First Edition , released in 1977, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short. Out of her interest in spiritual travel, the documentary The Monastery was made in 1980 , a film about the oldest Trappist community in America. Whitney's 1982 ABC News documentary American Inquisition about the McCarthy era led to a defamation suit from American journalist Victor Lasky. However, the court ruled in favor of Whitney and ABS News. The three-hour frontline documentary for PBS John Paul II: The Millennial Pope was made in 1999.

Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002), a two-hour television special on the September 11, 2001 attacks , examines the aftermath and aftermath of this event and examines how religious belief and disbelief evolved through the 9/11 challenge has changed. A four-hour miniseries for PBS, an initial collaboration between the PBS programs American Experience and Frontline, ran Whitney's film The Mormons (2007), which explores the wealth, complexity and controversy surrounding the Mormon faith. Her film Forgiveness: A Time to Love & A Time to Hate (German forgiveness: A time to love and a time to hate ; 2011) deals with power relations, their limits and the dangers of forgiveness using stories about personal betrayal and extend to genocide. The filming took place all over America, in South Africa, Germany and Rwanda. The three hour series aired on PBS in April 2011. The film inspired Whitney to write a book of the same title that includes a foreword by the Dalai Lama .

Whitney has worked with actors such as Lindsay Crouse , Austin Pendleton , Blair Brown , Brenda Fricker and David Strathairn , among others . Her films have received an Oscar nomination, the Alfred I. duPont – Columbia University Award , an Emmy Award, the Humanitas Prize and the George Foster Peabody Award .

Filmography (selection)

Documentaries, producer, director, writer

  • 1977: First Edition
  • 1978: Youth Terror: The View From Behind the Gun
  • 1980: The Monastery
  • 1982: Homosexuals
  • 1982: American Inquisition
  • 1992: They Have Souls Too
  • 1992: Society Class in Great Britain
  • 1994: American Masters: Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light
  • 1996: Frontline: The Choice '96
  • 1999: Frontline: John Paul II .: The Millennial Pope
  • 2002: Frontline: Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero
  • 2007: Frontline / American Experience: The Mormons , Part 1 + 2
  • 2011: Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate
  • 2017: Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death

dramatic feature films for television, directing

  • 1989: Young Fates : A Town's Revenge
  • 1990: Everyday Heroes
  • 1991: First Love. Fatal love
  • 1991: Lethal Innocence
  • 1997: In the Gloaming

Awards

year plant Award, category along with Result
1978 First edition Oscar : Best Documentary Short Film DeWitt L. Sage, Jr. Nominated
1978 Youth Terror: The View From Behind The Gun San Francisco International Film Festival Award Won
1978 First edition Robert Flaherty Film Seminar Award Won
1985 American Inquisition Edward Murrow Award Won
1988 They Have Souls Too Humanitas Prize Won
1990 A Town's Revenge Humanitas Prize Nominated
1996 Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light Directors Guild of America Award : Outstanding Directing Nominated
1996 Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light The Hamptons International Film Festival Award for Most Popular Film Won
1996 The Choice '96 Alfred I. duPont – Columbia University Award Won
1996 The Choice '96 George Foster Peabody Award Won
1996 The Choice '96 Emmy Award for outstanding analysis of a single story Won
1996 The Choice '96 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Screenplay Jane Barnes Nominated
2002 Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award Won
2002 Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero Christopher Award Ron Rosenbaum , David Fanning, Michael Sullivan Won
1999 John Paul II: The Millennial Pope Writer's Guild of America Award for Outstanding Screenplay Jane Barnes Won

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Helen Whitney - Producer, Director, Writer sS intothenightdoc.com (English)
  2. ↑ The 50th Academy Awards | 1978 sS oscars.org (English)
  3. ↑ Christina Schmidt and Hardy Helburn sS nytimes.com, May 20, 2012 (English). Retrieved February 9, 2018.
  4. ↑ Helen Whitney on Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death sS austinfilmfestivals.com (English)
personal data
SURNAME Whitney, Helen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director, film producer, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century