Short Films, Big Ideas
Focus Forward is an unprecedented new series of 30 three-minute stories about innovative people who are reshaping the world through act or invention, directed by the world's most celebrated documentary filmmakers.
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Focus Forward
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The Directors
A who's who of international documentary filmmakers drawn from every corner of the globe, Focus Forward directors are the most distinguished nonfiction storytellers working in contemporary independent cinema today. Many have won Academy Awards for their shorts and features; others have earned their laurels at world-renowned festivals and at the box office.
Oscar-winning director of Hoop Dreams, Stevie, At the Death House Door, and The Interrupters.
Steve James
Award-winning director of ¡Vivan las antipodas!, Russia from My Window, Hush, Pavel i Lyalya, Sreda, and Belovy.
Victor Kossakovsky
Award-winning director of Last Train Home and producer of the widely acclaimed feature Up the Yangtze.
Lixin Fan
Emmy- and Sundance-winning director of Freedom Riders, Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind.
Stanley Nelson
Oscar-winning director of Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids.
Ross Kauffman
Coming Soon
Award-winning director of Wagah, Way Back Home, and Hope Dies Last in War, winner of the 2009 Golden Lotus Award for best documentary.
Supriyo Sen
Oscar-nominated director of Waste Land, Countdown to Zero, Devil's Playground, Blindsight, and The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom.
Lucy Walker
Award-winning director of Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, The Devil Came on Horseback, and The Trials of Darryl Hunt.
Annie Sundberg/Ricki Stern
Oscar-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Magic Trip, and The Last Gladiators.
Alex Gibney
Award-winning director of Project Kashmir and co-producer of The First Year, plus numerous projects for CNN, ABC, Discovery, BBC, and Channel 4.
Senain Kheshgi
Oscar-nominated director of The Pixar Story, Dirty Oil, Recycled Life, and Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible.
Leslie Iwerks
Pepper & Bones are the directors of GUNNER PALACE, THE PRISONER OR HOW I PLANNED TO KILL TONY BLAIR, BULLETPROOF SALESMAN, HOW TO FOLD A FLAG, and FIGHTVILLE.
Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker
Oscar-nominated director of The Farm: Angola USA, Girlhood, Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, and Bobby Fischer Against the World.
Liz Garbus
Award-winning director of Kassim the Dream and The Devil's Miner; editor on the Oscar-nominated Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.
Kief Davidson
Fredrik Gertten is an award-winning director (BANANAS!*, An Ordinary Family) and journalist based in Malmö, Sweden. His latest film is Big Boys Gone Bananas!*.
Fredrik Gertten
Oscar-nominated director of Super Size Me, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, and most recently, Comic-Con, Episode Four: A Fan's Hope.
Morgan Spurlock
Award-winning director and producer of Gerrymandering and co-founding editor-in-chief of the popular online film journal Reverse Shot.
Jeff Reichert
The Festivals
Look for Focus Forward films at leading film festivals around the world,
including Sundance, Tribeca, the Berlinale Talent Campus, and the International Documentary Festival
of Amsterdam (IDFA), with additional festivals to be announced soon in Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, the UK, North America, Australia, and the Middle East.
More to Come
Short Films, Big Ideas
Focus Forward films will highlight exceptional people and world-changing ideas that have impacted the course of human development, now and then, or with great potential to significantly affect how we live in the next generation.
Our impressive roster of international filmmakers - innovators in their own right - will marshal their talent and energy to deliver an authentic documentary film in their own voice. In the span of three minutes, these films will encompass everything from medical advances to economically viable "green"-powered homes to the development of wireless technologies in Third World countries, not to mention innovations in transportation and healthcare, gene therapy and waste management, or any other sphere of art and knowledge that inspires them.
Through their eyes you'll see how engineers, educators, inventors, surgeons, philosophers, social workers and others are utilizing their skills and vision to help sow the seeds of a better future.
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