Barbara Kopple, a two-time Academy Award winning
filmmaker recently completed a one hour television
pilot, The DC Sniper’s Wife,
which explores the life of Mildred Muhammad,
ex-wife of the infamous DC sniper, John Allen
Muhammad. It aired on TruTV in May and June
2008. Earlier this year, Barbara’s documentary
High School Musical: The Music In
You, which follows students in Fort
Worth, Texas performing a stage adaptation
of “High School Musical,” premiered
on the Disney Channel. Other recent works
include the feature-length documentary
Shut Up and Sing which tells the
story of the Dixie Chicks and their personal
and creative response to the political fallout
they faced after making comments critical
of President Bush on the eve of the Iraq War.
Shut Up and Sing premiered
at a gala screening at the 2006 Toronto Film
Festival before being released in theaters
nationwide. Steamfitters Local Union
638, which is part of HBO’s
Addiction Series premiered on HBO in March
2007. This program was awarded the Television
Academy of Arts and Sciences Governor’s
Award.
Barbara produced and directed Harlan
County USA
and American
Dream, both
winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary
Feature. In 1991, Harlan County USA
was named to the National Film Registry by
the Librarian of Congress and designated an
American Film Classic. Harlan
County USA
was recently restored and preserved by the
Women’s Preservation Fund and the Academy
Film Archive, and was featured as part of
the Sundance Collection at the Sundance Film
Festival in 2005. The Criterion Collection
released a DVD of Harlan
County USA
in 2006.
Barbara produced and directed A
Conversation with Gregory Peck,
a film portrait of the career and family life
of the actor; The
Hamptons,
a four-hour mini-series for ABC; My
Generation,
which examines the Woodstock legacy and Generation
X; and Fallen
Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson,
for which she was nominated for an Emmy for
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing.
She directed the feature nonfiction film Wild
Man Blues,
about the European tour of Woody Allen and
his New Orleans-style jazz band, for which
she won the National Board of Review Award
for Best Documentary. Barbara also produced
the HBO documentary American
Standoff,
which chronicled an 18-month strike of the
Teamsters Union against Overnite Transportation.
Barbara was a member of the Winter Soldier
Collective, which created the film Winter Soldier.
Other nonfiction films include No
Nukes, a
"rockumentary" shot during five
days of concerts at Madison Square Garden
and distributed by Warner Brothers; Defending
Our Daughters,
an investigation into women’s human
rights issues in Bosnia, Pakistan and Egypt
and winner of a Voices of Courage Award; With
Liberty and Justice For All?,
a short documentary made for the Alliance
for Justice, which explores the issue of immigration
law. Barbara also directed a series of specials
for the Disney Channel, including Friends
for Life: Living with AIDS,
the first show about AIDS to air on that network.
She also co-created, produced and directed
I Married…,
a series for VH1 about the spouses and families
of rock stars.
Barbara directed the narrative feature Havoc,
starring Anne Hathaway, Bijou Phillips and
Freddy Rodriguez and written
by Stephen Gaghan, about a group of wealthy
teenagers coming of age and searching for
an identity in Los Angeles. She also directs
episodic television and commercial spots.
Her television work includes episodes of OZ
on HBO and Homicide,
for which she won a DGA Award for Outstanding
Direction. Barbara has directed spots for
companies such as Sprint, Applebee’s,
Dove, Intel, Target, The Tiger Woods Foundation,
Pearl Vision and the Children’s Defense
Fund.
Barbara has been awarded the Human Rights
Watch Film Festival
Lifetime Achievement Award, Los Angeles Film
Critics Award, National Society of Film Critics
Award, the SilverDocs/Charles Guggenheim Award,
New York Women in Film & Television Muse
Award, the Maya Deren Independent Film and
Video Award, the Woodstock Film Festival Maverick
Award, Women in Film & Video of Washington,
DC Women of Vision Award, the White House
Project’s EPIC Award, and the Sundance
Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Filmmakers
Trophy & Audience Award. The Paley Center
for Media has named Barbara a 2007 "She
Made It Honoree.” She currently serves
as an advisory board member for the American
Film Institute and as a board member of the
American University Center for Social Media.
She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of
Film and Television Arts, and actively participates
in organizations that address social issues
and support independent filmmaking.
