On November 30, the Focus on Women Committee (FOWC) hosted a discussion with DGA Award-nominated Director Director Liz Garbus.
Following a viewing of clips from her documentaries The Fourth Estate and Lost Girls, Garbus engaged in a Q&A about her career moderated by FOWC Co-Chair Annetta Marion.
During the conversation she spoke about the why she initially opted to go into documentary filmmaking vs scripted films.
“I had a lot of ideas about documentaries, but it was through that relationship working with a documentary filmmaker, and ultimately nurturing this idea that became my first feature documentary, The Farm: Angola, USA, and set me off on being a documentary filmmaker. I had a script that I was working on with a friend that we were carrying around that I did not get off the ground. I was always interested in both forms, but I was working in documentary because I loved it and that was also where I was getting projects up and running. Documentary as a field was much more open to women filmmakers. The world of scripted films was harder to break into.”
Garbus’s directorial credits include the documentary features Becoming Cousteau, Bobby Fischer Against the World, Girlhood, The Nazi Officer’s Wife, Different Moms and The Execution of Wanda Jean; the scripted feature Lost Girls; the TV documentary mini-series The Fourth Estate; and episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. In 1999 she and Jonathan Stack earned an Academy Award nomination for “Best Documentary, Features” for their film The Farm: Angola, USA. In 2016, she received another Oscar nomination plus a DGA Award Nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for her film, What Happened, Miss Simone?
Garbus has been a DGA member since 2013 and currently serves on the Eastern Directors Council.
See video from this event in the gallery below.
About the Committee:
Originally a sub-committee of the Eastern Directors Council, in 2020 the Focus on Women Committee (FOWC) was designated an official and permanent committee of the DGA National Board for women members residing in the Eastern Region. The Committee would like to remind members that while their events are designed with a special focus on women directors, all DGA members are welcome to attend.