Barbara Kopple

Award Winning Filmmaker

Barbara Kopple, a two-time Academy Award winning filmmaker, recently completed directing the narrative feature Havoc, written by Stephen Gaghan, about a group of wealthy teenagers coming of age and searching for an identity in Los Angeles.

Ms. Kopple just completed the film The House of Steinbrenner, which is part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. The film premiered on ESPN in September, 2010. She’s currently in the post-production phase of a feature-length documentary for HBO exploring the meaning of guns in America, as well as a film on the drug approval process in the United States.

Ms. Kopple co-created and produced I Married., a series for VH1 about the spouses and families of rock stars. Ms. Kopple produced the documentary feature Bearing Witness, which tells the story of women war correspondents in Iraq and around the world, was produced for A&E and opened the 2005 Full Frame Film Festival. She also directed the nonfiction feature Dance Cuba, an exploration into American and Cuban relations when an American dance company performs in Cuba for the first time in forty years. 

Ms. Kopple 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 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. Also in 2006, Ms. Kopple released a documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing about the Dixie Chicks post-Bush controversy.

Ms. Kopple 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. Ms. Kopple also produced the HBO documentary American Standoff, which chronicled an 18-month strike of the Teamsters Union against Overnite Transportation.

Other films directed by Ms. Kopple include No Nukes, a "rockumentary" shot during five days of concerts at Madison Square Garden and distributed by Warner Brothers; and Defending Our Daughters, an investigation into women's human rights issues in Bosnia, Pakistan and Egypt and winner of Voices of Courage Award. Ms. Kopple 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. 

Ms. Kopple 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. Ms. Kopple has directed spots for companies such as Sprint, Applebee's, Dove, Intel, Target and the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Ms. Kopple 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, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Filmmakers Trophy & Audience Award. Ms. Kopple currently serves as a board member for the American Film Institute and the American Univesity Center for Social Media, and actively participates in organizations that address social issues and support independent filmmaking.