Robert Greene (filmmaker)

Robert Greene was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He received his bachelor's degree from North Carolina State University in 2000, majoring in Communication and Multidisciplinary Film Studies. He received his M.F.A. at City College of New York in Media Arts Studies. During his studies in New York he worked at Kim's Video. In 2002, Robert Greene began working at 4th Row Films, starting as freelance editor. In 2004 he began working a full-time as a post-production supervisor. During this time, he worked with producers Douglas Tirola and Susan Bedusa on films including All In: The Poker Movie (2008), Making the Boys (2011), and An Omar Broadway Film (2008). While he was at 4th Row, Robert Greene directed and produced Owning the Weather (2009) and Kati with an I (2010).

In 2011 he released Fake It So Real, his third feature as director, a documentary following a Lincolnton, North Carolina independent wrestling group over the week leading up to a big show.[3] In 2012 he left 4th Row Films to work on independent projects. In 2014 he directed Actress, a documentary about actress Brandy Burre as she attempts to return to her acting career after abandoning it to concentrate on raising a family.[4] In 2016 he directed Kate Plays Christine, a more experimental work[5] depicting actress Kate Lyn Sheil's preparations to portray the role of Christine Chubbuck, a real-life news reporter who took her own life on national television in 1974.

In 2021, Robert Greene premiered Procession at the Telluride Film Festival where it was acquired by Netflix. Procession follows six men who suffered sexual abuse by Catholic priests band together to become a makeshift family, and find empowerment by creating fictional scenes depicting rituals of power in the church. The film was nominated for at the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature[6] at the Independent Spirit Awards and shortlisted by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the for best documentary at the 94th Academy Awards.[7]

Robert Greene has worked with Sean Price Williams and Alex Ross Perry, having edited Perry's feature film Listen Up Philip,[8] as well as Amanda Rose Wilder's Approaching the Elephant,[9] Nick Berardini's Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle,[10] and Robert Kolodny's The Featherweight.[11] In 2015 Robert Greene was appointed filmmaker-in-chief at the new Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. He is also an assistant professor in their Journalism and Film Studies programs.

He is a writer, critic and reviewer, contributing regularly to Sight & Sound[12] as well as to other print and online publications including Filmmaker,[13] Criterion,[14] and Criticwire. Present Tense: Notes on American Nonfiction Cinema 1998-2013, his first book, is slated for release by The Critical Press for July 2015.[15]

Robert Greene cites a variety of filmmakers and directors as influences for his work, including Frederick Wiseman, Albert and David Maysles, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, John Cassavetes, and Kon Ichikawa. Robert Greene has called Peter Watkins' Edvard Munch his favorite film of all time.[16]

For Actress, Robert Greene was interested in Wiseman and Douglas Sirk for their mastery of visuals and definitive style, on how their influence could be incorporated in telling Burre's story.[17]