Bill Benenson
Script error: No such module "Draft topics".
Script error: No such module "AfC topic".
| Bill Benenson | |
|---|---|
| File:Bill benenson.jpgBill benenson.jpg | |
| Born | February 10, 1943 New York, NY |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Columbia University |
| 💼 Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Known for | Dirt! The Movie, The Lost City of the Monkey God |
| 👩 Spouse(s) | Laurie Benenson (Undated.) |
| 🌐 Website | www.benensonproductions.com |
Bill Benenson (born February 10, 1943) is an American filmmaker and environmentalist who is best known for his documentaries Dirt! The Movie, The Lost City of the Monkey God, and Kiss the Ground[1][2]. He has produced and directed over 40 films, often involving international and environmental concerns, along with social justice and gun control issues.
Life and career[edit]
Benenson was born and raised in New York City. A graduate of Columbia University School of General Studies and later Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, he also received a certificate as a directing fellow from the American Film Academy.
Benenson began his filmmaking career in 1970 with a documentary about Brazilian diamond prospectors called Diamond Rivers, shortly after spending two and a half years as a volunteer in the United States Peace Corps in Bahia, Brazil. Diamond Rivers was featured on WNET/PBS in 1977. In 2019, Benenson returned to the Chapada Diamantina to produce a followup film called Diamond Rivers Reborn, about the Chapada Diamantina National Park, which had been established in 1985 by a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, Dr. Roy Funch.
Other notable films from Benenson's career include the 1970 documentary Easter Island Rises, produced in conjunction with the World Monuments Fund, and The Marginal Way, both of which were also shown on PBS through WNET New York.
Benenson is an executive producer on Beasts of No Nation, Honey Boy, and Harriet among others. In 2011, he and a team traveled to Tanzania to document The Hadza tribe for his film The Hadza: Last of the First[3]. This film screened later at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), and in Sydney, Australia at the IUCN World Parks Congress.[4]
Dirt! The Movie[edit]
In 2009, Benenson and Gene Rosow released their documentary Dirt! The Movie, narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, and inspired by the book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan[5][6]. The documentary stars environmentalists Wangari Maathai, Vandana Shiva, Gary Vaynerchuk, Paul Stamets and Bill Logan. The film explores the relationship between humans and soil, including its necessity for human life, and human impact on the environment.[7]
Dirt! The Movie was an official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and aired on PBS Independent Lens in 2010, as PBS’ 40th anniversary Earth Day Special. It won several awards[8], including the best documentary award at the 2009 Visions/Voices Environmental Film Festival and the "Best film for our future" award at the 2009 Mendocino Film Festival.
Lost City of the Monkey God[edit]
In 2018, Benenson completed a documentary[9] about his expedition to the La Mosquitia, Honduran rainforest which resulted in the discovery of a Lost City[10][11][12], now called The City of the Jaguar. For this project, he and collaborator Steve Elkins were awarded the prestigious Foreign Policy Magazine award FP Top 100 Global Thinkers.[13]. Writer Douglas Preston chronicled the trip for The New Yorker[13] and later wrote a nonfiction book about the experience also titled The Lost City of the Monkey God. The book was a Number One Bestseller and has sold over half a million copies and been translated into 24 foreign languages.
Filmography[edit]
Prolific in film since the 1970s, Benenson has written, produced and/or directed over 40 films:
Filmography
- 2019 Fantastic Fungi (Documentary) (producer) (completed)
- Kiss the Ground (Documentary short) (producer) (post-production)
- 2019 Harriet (executive producer) (post-production)
- Beasts of No Nation (executive producer) (completed)
- A Whole New Irving (executive producer) (completed)
- 2018 Cracked Up (Documentary) (executive producer)
- 2018 Lost City of the Monkey God (Documentary) (producer)
- 2017 Atomic Homefront (Documentary) (executive producer)
- 2017 Going Home (Documentary short) (executive producer)
- 2017 We the People 2.0 (Documentary) (co-executive producer)
- 2017 Patti Cake$ (executive producer)
- 2016 Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA (Documentary) (executive producer)
- 2015 Beasts of No Nation (executive producer)
- 2015 Killer Serve (executive producer)
References[edit]
- ↑ "Kiss The Ground". newportFILM. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ "Kiss the Ground | 2021 Tribeca Festival". Tribeca. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ "Review: 'Last of the First' an academic but valuable look at Africa's Hadza". Los Angeles Times. 2014-10-24. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ Robbins, Caryn. "Documentary The Hadza: Last of the First to Premiere at Environmental Film Festival". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ dev (2010-05-13). "Palisadians Dig into 'Dirt! The Movie'". Palisadian Post. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ "Dirt! The Movie | Documentary Films | Independent Lens | PBS". Independent Lens. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ "Digging In: An Interview with Eugene Rosow and Bill Benenson of "Dirt! The Movie"". Independent Magazine. 2009-07-09. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ "Dirt! The Movie". iTVS. April 10, 2010.
- ↑ "Lost City of the Monkey God : Programs : Science Channel : Discovery Press Web". press.discovery.com. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ "Learn About a Lost City Discovered in the Honduran Rain Forest". National Geographic. 2015-03-02. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ Caron, Marc (2018-10-25). "VIFF: Lost City of the Monkey God with Bill Benenson". Conscious Living Radio. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ Preston, Douglas. "The Design and Fall of Civilizations". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Preston, Douglas (April 19, 2013). "The El Dorado Machine". The New Yorker.
This article "Bill Benenson" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Bill Benenson. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
