Margaret Brown (film director)

Margaret Brown is an American film director who has directed four feature length documentaries. Her film Descendant, about the descendants of survivors of the last ship to carry enslaved Africans into the United States, was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Awards.[1]

Margaret Brown
Born
Margaret Luce Brown

Mobile, Alabama, U.S.
Education
Occupationfilm director

Early life and education

Brown was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama. A Murphy High School alumna,[2][3] she earned her BA from Brown University with concentrations in Creative Writing and Modern Culture and Media, and her MFA in Film from New York University.

Career

Brown served as cinematographer for 99 Threadwaxing in 1999 and director for Ice Fishing in 2000.[3] Her full-length debut[4] was Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt (2004) which chronicles the turbulent life of American singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Time Out magazine listed it at number 7 on its "50 Greatest Music Films Ever".[5]

She subsequently directed the feature documentary The Order of Myths[6] a 2008 Sundance Film Festival selection about the segregated Mardi Gras celebration of Mobile, Alabama.[7] The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. It won many awards[8][9] including a Peabody Award,[10] a Cinematic Vision Award at the Silverdocs Documentary Festival[11] and Truer Than Fiction Award[12] at the Independent Spirit Awards.

In 2014, Brown directed the feature documentary The Great Invisible[13][14][15] which won the SXSW Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and received an Emmy nomination[16] for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and aired on Independent Lens on PBS in April 2015.[17][18] The Great Invisible features the BP oil spill in the Gulf in 2010 and Deepwater Horizon oil spill aftermath.[19]

Brown's documentary film, Descendant, explores issues of equity and justice facing descendants of the last US slave ship Clotilda, as well as the discovery of the sunken ship in 2019. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2022.[20] The film began its distribution in 2022 by Netflix and Higher Ground, the film production company of former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.[21] The film was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Awards.[1]

Filmography
Year Title Notes
2004 Be Here to Love Me [4]
2008 The Order of Myths [6]
2014 The Great Invisible [13] Emmy nomination for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking [16]
2022 Descendant [20] Special Jury Award for Impact for Creative Vision, 2022 Sundance Film Festival [22]

Honors and awards

Brown was nominated a Cultural Ambassador for Documentary Filmmaking from the United States to Colombia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and holds fellowships from United States Artists[23] and The MacDowell Colony.[24]

References
  1. Verhoeven, Beatrice (2023-01-05). "Oscars: Tales of Artistry, Environmental Activism and Political Struggle Lead the Documentary Feature Race". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2023-01-27.
  2. Margaret Luce Brown Murphy High School Alumni
  3. "The Alumnus newsletter May 2015, Murphy High School Alumni Association" (PDF). Murphyalumni.org. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  4. "Margaret Brown Films". 22 October 2012. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  5. Calhoun, Dave. "50 greatest music films ever". Time Out London. Archived from the original on 2015-02-20. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  6. "Independent Lens . THE ORDER OF MYTHS . The Film – PBS". Pbs.org. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  7. "monsters and Critics: The Order of Myths - Movie Review". Archived from the original on 30 October 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  8. "Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film – News". Chlotrudis.org. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  9. "Filmmaker Magazine – Festival Ambassador". Filmmakermagazine.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  10. "Independent Lens: The Order of Myths". Peabodyawards.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  11. "Detail view of Movies Page". Afi.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  12. "Meet the 12 Film Independent Fellows Joining the Academy – Film Independent". Filmindependent.org. 2 September 2016. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  13. The Great Invisible at IMDb
  14. DP/30: The Oral History Of Hollywood (30 October 2014). "The Great Invisible, Margaret Brown". Retrieved 9 July 2017 – via YouTube.
  15. The Aspen Institute (5 September 2014). "The Great Invisible (Post-Screening Discussion)". Retrieved 9 July 2017 – via YouTube.
  16. "Nominees/Winners". Emmys.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  17. "Film Awards Past Winners". South by Southwest. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  18. "The Great Invisible (Independent Lens)". National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2015-10-06. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  19. Callum, Paul (24 December 2014). "Going Deep". Texasmonthly.com. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  20. Daniels, Robert (22 January 2022). "'Descendant' Review: Africatown Documentary Rectifies Black Erasure by Filling Historical Gaps". Indie Wire. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  21. Jackson, Angelique (29 January 2022). "Netflix, Higher Ground Acquires Sundance Award Winner 'Descendant'". Variety.com. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  22. Debruge, Peter (28 January 2022). "Sundance 2022 Winners: From 'Nanny' and 'Navalny' to Crowd-Pleaser 'Cha Cha Real Smooth,' Indie Fest Spreads the Wealth". Variety.com. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  23. "Margaret Brown". Unitedstatesartists.org. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  24. recent MacDowell Colony Fellows "... nearly completed her first feature film, which is based in the world of her second documentary The Order of Myths for which she completed a second draft. She used the time to get feedback from other filmmakers and readers and to prepare some of the interviews for the hybrid aspect of her film. She also worked on developing documentary projects."
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