About Moxie Firecracker Films

Award-winning filmmakers Liz Garbus and Rory Kennedy co-founded Moxie Firecracker Films in 1998. Since then, they have pursued their unique filmmaking vision, producing documentaries that illuminate larger social issues by telling the stories of everyday people. Together, they produce and direct films for broadcast and cable networks, including HBO, A&E, MTV, TLC, Lifetime Television, The Oxygen Network, Court TV, Showtime, Discovery Channel, Channel 4 UK, and The Sundance Channel, as well as for educational foundations and grant–makers.

Background

Garbus and Kennedy met at Brown University and bring varied talents and experiences to Moxie Firecracker. Kennedy has made social issue films on a range of topics including the global AIDS crisis, human rights, domestic abuse, poverty, and addiction. Garbus, a Fellow of the Soros Foundation's Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture, has produced documentaries on the U.S. legal system, the entertainment industry, marriage, prostitution, and violent criminals.

In 1998, Garbus achieved international public and critical acclaim when she received an Academy Award nomination for her film, The Farm: Angola, USA. Made in collaboration with Jonathan Stack, The Farm is the result of a three-year relationship that the filmmakers fostered with Louisiana Corrections Officials and with six men confined in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Critics and audiences alike lauded The Farm, awarding it-among many other prizes-the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, two Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Gate Golden Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Doubletake Film Festival, first prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the New York Film Critics Circle. The Farm opened theatrically in June 1998 at New York's Film Forum and aired on the Arts & Entertainment Network and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom in September 1998.

In 1999, Kennedy's film, American Hollow brought her filmmaking to the attention of critics and the viewing public. The story of a tight-knit Appalachian family caught between century-old tradition and the encroaching modern world, American Hollow premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Subsequently, it won Best Documentary prizes from the American Film Institute and the Newport and Northampton Film Festivals, winning The Gold Hugo award at The 1999 Chicago International Film Festival and garnering an Independent Spirit Award nomination. After its critically acclaimed run at New York City's Film Forum, HBO broadcast the film as part of their America Undercover series, for which the film received a nomination for the Non-Fiction Emmy Award. Additionally, Little, Brown & Co. published Kennedy's companion book, American Hollow, in conjunction with the film's broadcast premiere.

Realizing the synergistic potential of their filmmaking missions, Garbus and Kennedy merged their former Firecracker and Moxie banners and set up Moxie Firecracker Films in their native New York City. Their first joint venture, Different Moms, a documentary about mentally retarded parents raising normally developed children, aired on Lifetime Television in May 1999. Other Moxie Firecracker projects include Juvies, a documentary about juvenile justice (A&E, March 2000); The Changing Face of Beauty, a film that examines our cultural myths and standards of beauty (Lifetime Television, March 2000); The Travelers, which follows a group of young adults who hop freight trains across the country (MTV, April 2000); Healthy Start, about the state of prenatal healthcare in America (Lifetime Television, February 2001); All Kinds of Families, which takes an intimate look at alternative families (Lifetime Television, January 2001); Epidemic Africa, a short film about the devastating impact of AIDS on families in sub-Saharan Africa, made for the White House Office of National AIDS Policy; Up in Arms, a film about people who have lost family members to gun violence, featured as the centerpiece of the Alliance for Justice's nationwide gun control campaign; Body of Evidence, a look inside the case files of Florida's foremost criminal profiler (Court TV, Fall 2001); and Speak Truth to Power, a series of PSAs highlighting the achievements of several human rights activists (Court TV, Fall 2001); The Execution of Wanda Jean, about the final life and death battle of Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman in America to be executed in modern times (HBO, Sundance 2002); and Sixteen, a four-part series of one-hour films that will provide a cross-section of teenage girls at their most formative and volatile year of adolescence (The Oxygen Network, Winter 2002).

Recently completed films include: Together: Stop Violence Against Women, a one-hour special on violence against women (Lifetime, February 16, 2003); Pandemic: Facing AIDS, a feature-length film and five-part series which examines the worldwide health crisis (HBO, June 15, 2003); The Nazi Officer's Wife, based on the book of the same name, which looks at the extraordinary life of Holocaust survivor Edith Hahn Beer (A&E, June, 2003); Girlhood, which chronicles the dramatic three-year journeys of two young girls within the juvenile justice system and follows them back out onto the bleak streets of East Baltimore, MD. (TLC, Fall 2003); A Boy's Life, the story of a young boy and his family in Eupora, Mississippi (HBO, 2004); and Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House, which traces the life and career of this legendary reporter from her humble beginnings to her status as a fearless journalist who stands up to the most powerful men in the world.