Jon Alpert
| Jon Alpert | |
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| Born | c. 1948 |
Jon Alpert (born c. 1948) is an American journalist and documentary filmmaker, known for his use of a cinéma vérité approach in his films. A native of Port Chester, New York, Alpert is a 1970 graduate of Colgate University, and has a black belt in karate.[citation needed]
Alpert has traveled widely as an investigative journalist, and has made films for NBC, PBS, and HBO. Over the course of his career, he has won 15 Emmy Awards and three DuPont-Columbia Awards. He has been nominated for a 2010 Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary, Short Subject for China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province.[1] He has reported from Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Cuba, China, and Afghanistan.
In 1972, Alpert and his wife, Keiko Tsuno, founded the Downtown Community Television Center, one of the country's first community media centers. He has interviewed Fidel Castro several times,[2] and was one of the few Western journalists to have conducted a videotaped interview with Saddam Hussein since the Persian Gulf War.[3]
In 1991, while employed by NBC, Alpert was the first American journalist to bring back uncensored video footage[4] from the first Persian Gulf War. The footage, much of it focusing on civilian casualties, was cancelled three hours before it was supposed to be aired, and Alpert was simultaneously fired. Later that year, CBS Evening News Executive Producer Tom Bettag planned to air the footage but this airing was also cancelled, and Bettag fired.[5]
[edit] Films
- 1989 - One Year in A Life of Crime (Director/Producer)
- 1991 - Rape - Cries from the Heartland (Executive Producer)
- 1995 - High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell (Cinematographer/Producer)
- 1995 - Lock-up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island
- 1998 - Life of Crime 2
- 1998 - A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back
- 2002 - To Have and Have Not (Director)
- 2002 - Afghanistan: From Ground Zero to Ground Zero (Producer)
- 2002 - Papa (Director/Producer)
- 2003 - Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story (Director/Editor/Cinematographer/Producer)
- 2003 - Coca and the Congressman (Director)
- 2004 - The Last Cowboy (Director)
- 2004 - Dope Sick Love (Executive Producer)
- 2004 - Off to War (Executive Producer)
- 2004 - Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story (Executive Producer)
- 2005 - Venezuela: Revolution in Progress (Cinematographer)
- 2006 - Baghdad ER (Director/Producer)
- 2007 - The Bridge TV Show (Executive Producer/Cinematographer)
- 2008 - Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery (Co-Director/Co-Producer)
- 2008 - Dirty Driving: Thundercars of Indiana (Director/Producer)
- 2008 - A Woman Among Boys (Co-Director/Co-Producer)
- 2009 - China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (Co-Director/Co-Producer)
[edit] References
- ^ http://oscar.go.com/nominations/nominees/chinas-unnatural-disaster-the-tears-of-sichuan-province/3230
- ^ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/05/1452238
- ^ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/03/1459240
- ^ http://www.linktv.org/video/1862/robert-scheer-interviews-jon-alpert
- ^ http://ringnebula.com/project-censored/1976-1992/1991/1991-story1.htm
[edit] External links
- Jon Alpert biography
- Jon Alpert filmography
- Jon Alpert at the Internet Movie Database
- Jon Alpert Discusses His Unfinished James Brown Documentary on Democracy Now
- Jon Alpert Talks About His New Documentary, "Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery" on Democracy Now
- “China’s Unnatural Disaster”: Oscar-Nominated Doc on Sichuan Earthquake Brings World Attention to Chinese Crackdown on Dissidents A brief interview with Jon Alpert on Democracy Now
- HBO Dirty Driving Home Page
