Video History Project

People

Alan Berliner

Alan Berliner's experimental documentary films, Wide Awake (2006), The Sweetest Sound (2001), Nobody's Business (1996), Intimate Stranger (1991), and The Family Album (1986), have been broadcast all over the world, and received awards, prizes, and retrospectives at many major international film festivals. The San Francisco International Film Festival called Berliner, "America's foremost cinematic essayist." The Florida Film Festival called him "the modern master of personal documentary filmmaking."

Over the years, Berliner's films have become part of the core curriculum for documentary filmmaking and film history classes at universities worldwide, and are in the permanent collections of many film societies, festivals, libraries, colleges and museums. Berliner is a recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Jerome Foundation Fellowships, and has received multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He's won three Emmy Awards and received six Emmy nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Berliner has also served on several non-profit foundation funding panels and various international film festival juries -- including the 2007 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Jury -- is on the Board of Directors of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Martha's Vineyard Film Festival. In 2006, the International Documentary Association honored Berliner with an "International Trailblazer Award for creativity, innovation, originality, and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema." Berliner had previously been a recipient of a "Distinguished Achievement Award" from the IDA in 1993. In 2002, the National Foundation For Jewish Culture presented him with a "Cultural Achievement Award in the Arts," and he also received a "Storyteller Award" from Taos Talking Picture Film Festival in 2001. His films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. https://alanberliner.com/

Cite this record

"Alan Berliner." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/alan-berliner.

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Summary

Alan Berliner is a filmmaker of experimental documentaries including Wide Awake (2006) and The Sweetest Sound (2001); his films have been broadcast internationally and featured at major festivals. His work is taught in university documentary and film history courses and held in permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art; he received Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Jerome fellowships, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and New York arts agencies, and has won three Emmy Awards with six nominations. He served on festival juries including the 2007 Sundance Documentary Jury and received IDA awards in 1993 and 2006.

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Last modified 17 June 2011

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