Video History Project

People

Peter Adair

Peter Adair began making films when his parents gave him a movie camera for his high school graduation. His first major film, "Holy Ghost People," 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 "Word is Out," winner of numerous prizes including a Columbia Dupont Citation for Broadcast Excellence and the Prix l'Age d'Or, and in 1983 he completed "Stopping History," a PBS documentary about anti-nuclear activism. In 1986, Peter co-directed (with Rob Epstein) "The AIDS Show: Artists Involved with Death and Survival."

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 "one of the best ethnographic films ever made" * Word is out (1977) * Some of These Stories Are True (1981) * Stopping History (1983) * "The AIDS Show" (1986) * "Absolutely Positive" (1990).

Cite this record

"Peter Adair." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/peter-adair.

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Summary

Peter Adair began making films after his parents gave him a movie camera at his high school graduation; his first major film, Holy Ghost People (1967), was an anthropological study of Christian fundamentalists and was shown and praised by Margaret Mead at Columbia. He endured 18 months directing a documentary on Dionne Warwick and two years at a PBS station before producing and co-directing Word is Out and completing Stopping History (1983), and in 1986 co-directed The AIDS Show. He later created interactive computer games, received the James D. Phelan Award, helped found the Independent Feature Project, and his listed films include Some of These Stories Are True (1981) and Absolutely Positive (1990).

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Last modified 17 June 2011

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