Barbara Kopple (1994-1995)

Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award winning filmmaker. She directs documentaries, as well as narrative television and film. Her recent work includes the film Running from Crazy (2013), about the life of actress Muriel Hemingway, and Fight to Live (2012), which chronicles the struggles of those with rare diseases as they seek treatment against roadblocks imposed by the FDA approvals process. Many of her most celebrated films have addressed the struggle of workers to form unions, including Harlan County, USA (1976), which chronicles the miners’ violent struggle to join the United Mine Workers union and the effect of the strike on the lives of them and their families. Some of her projects include Shut Up and Sing (2006), Friends for Life: Living with AIDS (1998), A Force of Nature (2011), and The House of Steinbrenner (2010), an episode of the television show ESPN 30 for 30. Kopple has received the Human Rights Watch Film Festival’s Irene Diamond Award, the SilverDocs/Charles Guggenheim Award, the Woodstock Film Festival Maverick Award, the White House Project’s EPIC Award, the International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, among many others. She has served on the board of trustees for the American Film Institute and actively participates in institutions that address social issues and support independent filmmaking.