The Filmmaker
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James Rutenbeck
SCENES FROM A PARISH Director/Producer
What keeps him motivated as an independent filmmaker:
Telling the personal stories of people whose lives would not otherwise be seen or understood and immersing myself in their life circumstances is deeply satisfying work.
His three favorite films:
Impossible but here you are:
Nashville
Human Resources
Two or Three Things I Know About Her
His advice for aspiring filmmakers:
Find a way to support yourself and your work and follow your vision.
His most inspirational food for making independent film:
Cheez-Its sustained the film’s editor, Rob Todd. Since his work inspires me, I look to Cheez-Its for inspiration.
Filmmaker Bio
James Rutenbeck
Director/Producer
Rutenbeck's films explore the lives of unemployed coal miners, small farmers and itinerant evangelists. Raise the Dead portrays the lives of preachers practicing a grassroots tradition in the shadow of televangelism. In 2000, the hour-long documentary was the only U.S. film selected for competition at Cinema du Reel and was awarded Best Independent Film at the New England Film Festival. His 1989 film, Losing Ground, also a Cinema du Reel selection, is a psychological portrait of an Iowa family facing the loss of a family farm. His first film, Company Town (1984), is a meditation on the past and present in an Appalachian coal town.
Rutenbeck's body of work was featured at the 2003 Robert Flaherty International Film Seminar. His films have also been programmed at the Museum of Fine Arts and Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, MoMA, National Gallery, DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival, Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, Lussas International Film Festival, Black Maria and others.
In January 2009 Rutenbeck was a recipient of the duPont Columbia University Award for his work as producer and director of “Not Just a Paycheck,” a half-hour episode of the PBS series Unnatural Causes, about health disparities in the United States. “Not Just A Paycheck” examines the health consequences of the loss of 3,000 jobs in a rural Michigan county.
Editing credits include over 50 films for PBS, BBC, Channel Four (UK), Discovery Channel and Showtime. They include the 2008 ALMA award-winning Roberto Clemente for American Experience, the Emmy award-winning Siamese Twins for NOVA and the groundbreaking People of the Shining Path for Britain's Channel Four. These films have also won Peabody, duPont and other honors and awards. Rutenbeck was also a consulting editor on the recent independent feature American Wake.
Rutenbeck was awarded a 2007 Sundance Institute Documentary Fund grant and is a three-time recipient of artist fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He has received humanities grants from the Southern Humanities Media Fund and numerous state humanities councils. He received a master’s of science in visual arts from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984, where he studied filmmaking with cinema-verité pioneer Richard Leacock.
