Tod Lending Director, Producer, Writer

Mr. Lending is an Academy Award nominated and national Emmy award winning producer/director/writer whose work has aired nationally on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, HBO; has been screened and awarded at national and international festivals; and has been televised internationally in Europe and Asia. He is the president and founder of Nomadic Pictures, a film and television production company that is based in Chicago.

Mr. Lending series produced, directed, wrote and produced the international award winning series No Time to be a Child, a $1.4 million three-part documentary series that aired nationally on PBS and was a co-production with Detroit Public Television. The documentaries are about children overcoming the effects and consequences of violence in war-zone communities, their homes, and in situations of poverty. In addition to Lending's national Emmy for the ABC Afterschool Special Shades of a Single Protein, documentaries in the No Time to be a Child series (Growin' Up Not A Child, Breaking Ties, and Time to Speak) have garnered Lending numerous awards including a national Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary, two Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism, two New York Festival World Medals, a Gold Apple, two CINE Gold Eagles, two Chris awards, a National Headliner award, among others. In addition to its national and international television release, programs in the series have been widely distributed educationally to high schools, universities, community groups, and professional organizations throughout the country.

Mr. Lending's feature length documentary, Legacy, which he produced, directed and wrote, was recently nominated for an Academy Award. The film is scheduled to air on HBO in the summer of 2001 and was a critical success at the Sundance Film Festival 2000. The film was awarded the Reel Screen Innovation in Documentary Award, was nominated for two IDA awards and is now screening and garnering recognition and awards at national and international film festivals. Filmed over a five year period, Legacy is about the Collins family who for four generations were trapped in urban poverty, depending upon welfare and living in one of the oldest and most dangerous public housing projects in America -- Chicago's Henry Horner Homes. Through the powerful and dignified voices of women from three generations of the Collins family, Legacy tells the inspiring story of how family members recovered from the loss of their child, broke free of welfare, overcame addiction, and escaped the specter of violence in their community. In addition to the national HBO broadcast, educational and international distribution, Legacy is affecting communities on a grassroots level though an extensive two year outreach campaign.

Presently, Lending is completing a pilot for a documentary series on Public Defenders for Lifetime television, is developing Redemption, a feature documentary on a preacher working with prisoners, and a three-part documentary series entitled Confession, Conviction and Justice. The series will be ground-breaking in its examination of how poverty, race and politics impact and influence the US criminal justice system.

Mr. Lending's work has garnered major grants from the Ford Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Houlsby Foundation, U.S. Office of Education, Chicago Community Trust and the Continental Bank Foundation.