Jeanne Jordan
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Jeanne Jordan is an American independent director, producer and editor. She was nominated for an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
and has received the Grand Jury Prize at the
Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
among many other awards.Jeanne Jordan's Awards page at IMDb.
/ref>


Background

Jordan graduated from the
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
and began her career at Iowa Public Television. She moved to
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
to work as a freelance editor at
WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...
, Boston's public television station. She went on to edit many programs for WGBH and was the series producer of the children's series Postcards from Buster. She and her husband Steven Ascher produce a wide variety of media through their production company, West City Films.


Films

Her feature documentaries include a trilogy about families in trouble, co-directed with Steven Ascher.
Troublesome Creek: a Midwestern
is about the Jordan family and their effort to save their Iowa farm. It was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS The American Experience, the BBC premier documentary stran
Storyville
ZDF Germany and many other networks around the world.
So Much So Fast
tells the story of the Heywood family when son Stephen Heywood was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and his brother Jamie started a research group to try to find a cure. So Much So Fast was released theatrically and broadcast on PB
Frontline
BB
Storyville
ZDF Germany, Arte in France and others.
Raising Renee
part III of the trilogy, is about artist Beverly McIver and her promise to take care of her mentally disabled sister Renee when their mother died. Broadcast on HBO, AVRO Netherlands, SVT Sweden and Knowledge Network in Canada. Nominated for a 2013 Emmy for Outstanding Arts and Culture Programming. She and Ascher are producing Our Towns for HBO, a feature documentary based on
James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...
and
Deborah Fallows Deborah Fallows is an American writer and linguist. She is a fellow at the New America Foundation, and was assistant dean in languages and linguistics at Georgetown University. Early life and education Fallows grew up in both Minneapolis, Minn ...
book about resilient cities around the United States. Jordan was Series Producer of the PBS children's serie
Postcards from Buster
for two seasons, producing a new, international version of the show, nominated for the Outstanding Children's Series Emmy both years. Jordan edited two films of the groundbreaking civil rights series
Eyes on the Prize ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement'' is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also ...
which won an Emmy Award and the DuPont Columbia Award, and films for American Experience, including, Amelia Earhart and The Wright Stuff. Her dramatic feature work includes films for American Playhouse, including Noon Wine, Lemon Sky and the Emmy-winning series Concealed Enemies on the trials of Alger Hiss. She edited the bilingual feature, Blue Diner which won the prestigious ALMA award. She produced and edited the short drama Seduction Theory, about psychoanalysis and family, starring Tony nominee Michael Cumpsty, which won Best Dark Comedy at Worldfest Houston. Jordan and Orlando Bagwell produced Running With Jesse, a chronicle of Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential run for Frontline, which Jordan also edited. She has produced and edited several pieces for The PBS Newshour and films for the PBS series Art Close Up, which won and were nominated for Emmys. She and Ascher have served as Executive Producers and advisers on many projects, including the Peabody award-winning film Deej.


Selected filmography

*
Eyes on the Prize ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement'' is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also ...
* ''Running with Jesse''
Troublesome Creek

So Much So Fast

Postcards from Buster

Raising Renee
* ''Seduction Theory'' * ''A Woman’s Place'' * ''Cory Not Promised'' * ''Our Towns''


Academics and teaching

Jordan has twice been a fellow at the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...
at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. She has taught filmmaking at Harvard and lectured and held master classes in several countries


Awards

Among her awards are the Prix Italia, a
Peabody award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
, an
Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
and an International Documentary Association Distinguished Achievement Award. She was nominated for an Oscar, two
Daytime Emmy Award The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences ...
s, a Directors Guild of America Award and an Independent Spirit Award. Her festival awards include Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance, audience awards at the Sydney Film Festival and the San Francisco Film Festival and others. She received the Michael DeBakey Journalism Award and an Insight Award from the National Association of Film and Digital Media Artists. She has received grants and awards from the LEF Foundation, the Artists Foundation, the Paul Robeson Fund, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Iowa Humanities and many other state humanities and arts councils. Her films are in the collections of the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
,
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, and the Sundance Collection.


External links


Filmmaker's Website at West City Films
*


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jordan, Jeanne Living people American documentary film directors University of Iowa people Radcliffe fellows Year of birth missing (living people) People from Atlantic, Iowa Filmmakers from Iowa