Irene Taylor Brodsky

Irene Taylor (born June 15, 1970) is a Peabody and Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated director and producer whose documentaries have shown theatrically, at film festivals and stream worldwide.

Irene Taylor
Taylor in 2009
Born (1970-06-15) June 15, 1970
St. Louis, Missouri
EducationNew York University, Columbia University Graduate School Of Journalism
Alma materNYU (BA)
Columbia University (MA)
Occupation(s)Film director
Film producer
Writer
Cinematographer
editor
Years active2004 – present
Parent
Taylor filming Homeless: The Soundtrack.

Early life

Taylor was born on June 15, 1970, to deaf parents Sally and Paul Taylor.[1] She graduated from New York University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Career

Taylor began her documentary career in photojournalism. Her first feature documentary, Hear and Now, a documentary memoir about her deaf parents, won the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival in 2007, a Peabody Award and numerous awards at festivals around the world. It was also nominated by the Producer's Guild of America in 2008 for Documentary of the Year. Her HBO feature documentary Beware the Slenderman received two 2017 Critics' Choice Award nominations, for Best Director and Best Documentary, and was also nominated for a 2018 Emmy.

Taylor's previous credits include several theatrically released short films, all which aired on HBO. The Final Inch, about the global effort to eradicate polio, was nominated for an Academy award, multiple Emmys, and won the IDA's Pare Lorentz Award. After the 2010 Gulf oil spill, she followed the life of a single bird found coated in oil, and made Saving Pelican 895 which won an Emmy for its affecting music. She directed One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp, which won the 2014 Prime Time Emmy for Best Children's Programming. In 2016 she released Open Your Eyes, about an aging couple living in the Himalayas determined to regain their sight. Taylor's short opinion film Between Sound and Silence was released by The New York Times Op-Docs.

Taylor's early career began in Kathmandu, Nepal, working as a Himalayan Mountain guide and author. Her photography book, Buddhas in Disguise, became the basis for her first documentary film, made in 1993 with the United Nations. She is a graduate of New York University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and was a producer for CBS Sunday Morning. Taylor founded her production company Vermilion Films in 2006.[2]

In 2019, Taylor made Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements about her deaf son, her deaf father and Beethoven, as he went deaf while writing his famous sonata. It premiered at Sundance 2019, and was nominated for a 2020 PrimeTime Emmy Award for Special Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. That year, Taylor founded The Treehouse Project, a nonprofit forging broader accessibility to documentary film.

In 2021 it was announced that Taylor would be working with Sony Music on an upcoming documentary on the French-Canadian singer Celine Dion.

Taylor's most recent film, Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of the Boy Scouts premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, and won a 2022 Columbia-DuPont award.

Taylor's documentaries have appeared on HBO, Hulu, CBS, A&E, Fox, and the History Channel.

Filmography
  • 2007: Here and Now
  • 2009: The Final Inch
  • 2011: Saving Pelican 895[3]
  • 2014: One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp[4]
  • 2015: Open Your Eyes[5]
  • 2016: Beware the Slenderman
  • 2017: The Life Story
  • 2018: The Listening Project
  • 2018: Homeless: The Soundtrack[6]
  • 2018: Between Sound and Silence
  • 2019: Moonlight Sonata[7]
  • 2022: Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of the Boy Scouts

Awards and nominations
  • 2004: Emmy Award for an "Outstanding Feature in a Regularly Scheduled Broadcast", Heart of the Country
  • 2007: Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, Hear and Now[8]
  • 2008: Peabody Award, Hear and Now[9]
  • 2009: Nominee for Academy Award, The Final Inch[10]
  • 2016: Critics' Choice Documentary Awards: Nominee for Best Documentary Feature and for Best Direction of a Documentary Feature for Beware the Slenderman[11]
  • 2020: Nominee for Emmy in Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements[12]
  • 2022: Columbia duPont Award for Excellence in Broadcast, Documentary and Online Journalism for Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of the Boy Scouts

Select works
  • 1997 – Buddhas in Disguise: Deaf People of Nepal? San Diego, California: DawnSignPress. ISBN 978-0-915-03559-5; OCLC 36364073; the book's stories and photographs shed light on the Deaf culture and community in Nepal.
  • 1999 – I Witness: Polygamy. Amazon Prime Video. Main videographer and a producer of five 24-minute episodes on Alex Joseph's polygamist family just before Joseph died of liver cancer.

See also

Notes
  1. Turan, Kenneth (January 29, 2019). "With 'Moonlight Sonata,' Irene Taylor Brodsky returns to her family and film roots". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 17, 2023.
  2. Vermilion Films
  3. "Saving Pelican 895". HBO. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  4. "One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp". HBO. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  5. "Vermilion Films » Open Your Eyes, 2015". Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  6. "Vermilion Films » Homeless: The Soundtrack". Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  7. "Moonlight Sonata Documentary". Moonlight Sonata Documentary. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  8. "Rochester Native Brings Her Famous Film Home to Benefit Deaf Students", NTID News (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), March 15, 2008.
  9. "Hear and Now Released on DVD." Archived July 8, 2010, at the Wayback Machine NTID News. October 21, 2009.
  10. White, Thomas. "Meet the Academy Award Nominees: Irene Taylor Brodsky – The Final Inch", International Documentary Association, February 2009.
  11. RT Staff (November 2, 2017). "Critics' Choice Documentary Award Winners". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 16, 2023.
  12. Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements, retrieved January 20, 2020

References
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