{"id":7075,"title":"Peter Adair","kind":"bio","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/peter-adair","version":"d58b8c8e36d0e2e3ccfeb090f79ea8a414cd0a2666380d8668f6e241492a45b4","modified":"2011-06-17T23:59:07+00:00","credits":[],"authorKeys":[],"subjects":["bio"],"metadata":[{"label":"First name","value":"Peter","url":null},{"label":"Last name","value":"Adair","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022Peter Adair.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/peter-adair.","publication":null,"risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/7075.ris"},"links":[],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":1625},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":710}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Peter Adair began making films when his parents gave him a movie camera for his high school graduation. His first major film, \u0022Holy Ghost People,\u0022 made when he was just 21, was an anthropological study of Christian fundamentalists who test their faith by drinking strychnine and handling poisonous snakes. Margaret Mead invited the young filmmaker to show the movie and to lecture at her class at Columbia, where she said it was one of the finest ethnographic films ever made. It was all downhill from there -- for a while anyway -- including 18 horrible months directing a documentary on Dionne Warwick and two disastrous years working for a PBS station. Adair finally decided he had to do his own films, about subjects that mattered to him. In 1978, he produced and co-directed \u0022Word is Out,\u0022 winner of numerous prizes including a Columbia Dupont Citation for Broadcast Excellence and the Prix l\u0027Age d\u0027Or, and in 1983 he completed \u0022Stopping History,\u0022 a PBS documentary about anti-nuclear activism. In 1986, Peter co-directed (with Rob Epstein) \u0022The AIDS Show: Artists Involved with Death and Survival.\u0022 In the late 80s, Peter caught the computer virus, which led him to create interactive computer games. Adair was also a recipient of the James D. Phelan Award in filmmaking and a founding board member of the Independent Feature Project. His films include: * Holy Ghost People (1967), called by lesbian anthropologist Margaret Mead \u0022one of the best ethnographic films ever made\u0022 * Word is out (1977) * Some of These Stories Are True (1981) * Stopping History (1983) * \u0022The AIDS Show\u0022 (1986) * \u0022Absolutely Positive\u0022 (1990).","offset":0,"nextOffset":null,"totalCharacters":1625,"complete":true},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}