Lisa F. Jackson

Lisa F. Jackson has been making documentary films for over 35 years, work that has brought her awards that include two Emmy awards and a Sundance Jury Prize. Lisa (Elisabeth) Finch Jackson was born in San Francisco, CA in 1950, the daughter of Nancy Abrams and Morton B Jackson. When she was young, both her father and step-father, Donald Carmichael, were in the CIA and as a result she moved often, living in Bangkok, Thailand and in Bogota, Colombia before settling in Washington DC in 1963. Jackson studied filmmaking at MIT with Richard Leacock and has directed and/or edited dozens of films for PBS including: Voices and Visions: Emily Dickinson, Jackson Pollock: Portrait, Through Madness (1993 NYC Emmy winner), The Creative Spirit, Storytellers, The Van Cliburn Piano Competition; Bill Moyers' Journal, the prize-winning series The Mind, and segments for Sesame Street and Live from Lincoln Center. Jackson's other awards include an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Special ('99); a New York City Emmy ('93); three CINE Golden Eagles; Best Documentary Awards from the Rome Independent Film Festival and International Black DocuFest; Audience Choice Awards from the London HRWFF, One World Slovakia, Vancouver, Breckenridge and Cinequest film festivals; a Gracie Award from AWRT; four Houston International Film Festival Gold Awards; a Silver Chris Award from the Columbus International Film Festival; a Planned Parenthood "Maggie" Award for Outstanding Documentary; two Gold Clarion Awards from Women in Communications; the 2009 iWitness Award from Jewish World Watch and a Movies That Matter Award from Amnesty International. She has screened her work and lectured at the Columbia University School of Journalism, Brandeis, Purdue, NYU, Yale, Notre Dame and Harvard University and was a visiting professor of documentary film at the School for Visual Arts in Manhattan.