Opening Conversation with Gordon Quinn:

Patricia Aufderheide is University Professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. She founded the Center for Social Media, now Center for Media & Social Impact, where she continues as Senior Research Fellow. Her books include Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy, Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, with Peter Jaszi; and Documentary: A Very Short Introduction. A Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow, she has been honored with awards by International Documentary Association, Women in Film and Video, and University Film and Video Association, among others.

Gordon Quinn is the founder and senior adviser of Kartemquin Films. He was the executive producer of the Oscar-nominated documentaries Edith and Eddie, Abacus, and Minding the Gap. Other producer credits include Home for Life, Inquiring Nuns, Taylor Chain, The Last Pullman Car, Golub, Hoop Dreams, Vietnam, Long Time Coming, Stevie, In The Family, Refrigerator Mothers, Milking The Rhino, and The New Americans. Recently he directed For the Left Hand, Prisoner of Her Past, A Good Man and ’63 Boycott, the latter shortlisted for an Oscar nomination. Documentaries he executive produced include, The Interrupters, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, Dilemma of Desire, Raising Bertie, Life Itself, Represent, and Finding YingYing. Quinn helped create the “Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use”. He is a longtime advocate for public media, fair use, documentary ethics, and the role of the documentary in a democracy.