Nancy Kates is an independent filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay
Area. She directed Regarding Susan Sontag, a feature documentary about
the late essayist, novelist, director and activist. Through archival
footage, interviews, still photographs and images from popular
culture, the film reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the
cultural importance of her thought, and received funding from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Sundance Documentary
Film Program.Kates is best known for her film Brother Outsider: The
Life of Bayard Rustin, a full-length documentary she made with
co-producer Bennett Singer about Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights
leader. The film premiered on the PBS series POV and at the 2003
Sundance Film Festival, and received numerous awards, including the
2004 GLAAD Media Award and audience awards at the major American gay
and lesbian film festivals. It also received the award for best
feature film at New York’s New Festival and a number of jury prizes.
"In the struggle for African-American dignity, Rustin was perhaps the
most critical figure that many people have never heard of," says a
review in TIME Magazine, "but neither mainstream society nor even the
civil rights leadership could cope with his honesty." Hailed as
"marvelous" by The Wall Street Journal, "packed with information" by
The New York Times, and "beautifully crafted" by The Boston Globe, the
Village Voice commends the film for "vividly bring[ing] back to life a
man who deeply and brilliantly influenced the course of the civil
rights and peace movements."In 1995, Kates' master's thesis for
Stanford University's film program, Their Own Vietnam, won a Student
Academy Award in documentary. The film tells the stories of five
American women who served in the Vietnam War, including a couple who
met while serving. It presents a complex picture of their identities
as women, using archival footage, home movies and snapshots. The film
screened at the Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest Film
Festival, the Boston International Festival of Women’s Cinema, and
the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival among others,
aired on public television, and received an award of merit from the
International Documentary Association / David Wolper Awards. The
Journal of American History praised the film, saying that the "complex
melding of images from the Vietnam conflict culled from newsreel
footage, snapshots, and military recruiting films with the jarringly
honest recollections of five female veterans makes this an extremely
compelling film," and LA Weekly praised it for its "transformations
fraught with anger, pain, unimaginable guilt and sometimes joy - and
the honesty with which they're brought to light."Her previous films
include Castro Cowboy, a short film about the late Marlboro model
Christen Haren who died of AIDS in 1996, Joining the Tribe, Married
People, and Going to Extremes. A 1984 honors graduate of Harvard
University, Kates worked for several years at Harvard's Kennedy School
of Government writing public policy case-studies. She is a former
producer of the PBS series Computer Chronicles, and has worked as a
producer, writer, and story consultant on various documentary
projects. She also speaks frequently at schools, colleges and
universities.
Area. She directed Regarding Susan Sontag, a feature documentary about
the late essayist, novelist, director and activist. Through archival
footage, interviews, still photographs and images from popular
culture, the film reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the
cultural importance of her thought, and received funding from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Sundance Documentary
Film Program.Kates is best known for her film Brother Outsider: The
Life of Bayard Rustin, a full-length documentary she made with
co-producer Bennett Singer about Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights
leader. The film premiered on the PBS series POV and at the 2003
Sundance Film Festival, and received numerous awards, including the
2004 GLAAD Media Award and audience awards at the major American gay
and lesbian film festivals. It also received the award for best
feature film at New York’s New Festival and a number of jury prizes.
"In the struggle for African-American dignity, Rustin was perhaps the
most critical figure that many people have never heard of," says a
review in TIME Magazine, "but neither mainstream society nor even the
civil rights leadership could cope with his honesty." Hailed as
"marvelous" by The Wall Street Journal, "packed with information" by
The New York Times, and "beautifully crafted" by The Boston Globe, the
Village Voice commends the film for "vividly bring[ing] back to life a
man who deeply and brilliantly influenced the course of the civil
rights and peace movements."In 1995, Kates' master's thesis for
Stanford University's film program, Their Own Vietnam, won a Student
Academy Award in documentary. The film tells the stories of five
American women who served in the Vietnam War, including a couple who
met while serving. It presents a complex picture of their identities
as women, using archival footage, home movies and snapshots. The film
screened at the Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest Film
Festival, the Boston International Festival of Women’s Cinema, and
the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival among others,
aired on public television, and received an award of merit from the
International Documentary Association / David Wolper Awards. The
Journal of American History praised the film, saying that the "complex
melding of images from the Vietnam conflict culled from newsreel
footage, snapshots, and military recruiting films with the jarringly
honest recollections of five female veterans makes this an extremely
compelling film," and LA Weekly praised it for its "transformations
fraught with anger, pain, unimaginable guilt and sometimes joy - and
the honesty with which they're brought to light."Her previous films
include Castro Cowboy, a short film about the late Marlboro model
Christen Haren who died of AIDS in 1996, Joining the Tribe, Married
People, and Going to Extremes. A 1984 honors graduate of Harvard
University, Kates worked for several years at Harvard's Kennedy School
of Government writing public policy case-studies. She is a former
producer of the PBS series Computer Chronicles, and has worked as a
producer, writer, and story consultant on various documentary
projects. She also speaks frequently at schools, colleges and
universities.
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