Oren Jacoby
2021Oren Jacoby is a director and producer of documentary films, including Constantine's Sword (2008), "Sister Rose's Passion" (2005), The Shakespeare Sessions (2003), Stage on Screen: The Topdog Diaries (2002), The Beatles Revolution (2000), and Sam Shepard: Stalking Himself (1998). He was a co-producer of the PBS series The Irish in America: Long Journey Home (1998).
Jacoby was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for "Sister Rose's Passion" which also won Best Documentary Short Film at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. He has written, directed, and produced award-winning films for two decades. His filmmaking has been recognized by the American Film Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, ITVS, Britain’s Royal Television Society, and by AMPAS. His films have appeared on the BBC, HBO Cinemax, PBS, National Geographic, VH-1, NHK (Japan), as well as Nokia, Verizon, and Human Rights Watch websites.
“The Topdog Diaries” about the 2002 Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks, featured performances by Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright; “The Shakespeare Sessions” starred Kevin Kline, Cynthia Nixon, Liev Schreiber, and Charles S. Dutton. Jacoby also made: “Swingin’ with Duke”, starring Wynton Marsalis and “Master Thief” on the ‘art heist of the century’; and “Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing” for American Masters and “The Second Russian Revolution”, a behind the scenes investigation of the collapse of the USSR, called ‘the best BBC series of the decade’ by the London Independent.
Jacoby also wrote, produced and directed “The Return Ticket”, adapted from a short story by Anton Chekhov; “Ghosts of the Bayou”; “Idols of the Game”, featuring Michael Jordan;
He has won CINE Golden Eagles, the Royal Television Society (UK) journalism award, the MacArthur Golden Owl award, as well as grants from the American Film Institute, ITVS (The Independent Television Service) and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Jacoby has directed plays at Theater for the New City, the Williamstown Theater Festival, Ensemble Studio Theater, the West Bank Cafe and regional theaters, including new works by Richard Dresser, Quincy Long, and Franz Xavier Kroetz. He collaborated with Adrian Hall on an adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men”, with songs by Randy Newman, at the Dallas Theater Center and Trinity Rep. His stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man was performed in a reading at the 2004 Tribeca Theater Festival, in a co-production with the Classical Theater of Harlem. He wrote the screenplay for “Shores of a Dream" and is co-author with Forrest Stone of the original screenplay “Tarzan Brown” for the Oxford Film Company.
He is a graduate of Brown University and the Directing Program of the Yale School of Drama and is a native New Yorker. Tamar Jacoby, an American writer and academic, is his sister.
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Benny Goodman - Adventures In The Kingdom Of Swing
Oren Jacoby
Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong
This biography of musical legend Benny Goodman contains testimonials from various contemporaries and scholars, and offers several clips of the man in performance. Nearly two-dozen songs can be heard including "California, Here I Come," "A Fine Romance," "Why Don't You Do Right," "I've Got a Heart Full of Music," and "Bugle Cal Rag."
Benny Goodman - Adventures In The Kingdom Of Swing
Lafayette: The Lost Hero
Oren Jacoby
Brigitte Bardot, John Cullum
No one in recorded history has suffered a fate quite like Lafayette. Once, he was the most famous man in the world; today, few people know who he was or what he accomplished. Ever since he died, there has been a conflict over the true meaning of his accomplishments. It is time to re-evaluate his crucial role in the establishment of America's democracy.
Lafayette: The Lost Hero
The Topdog Diaries
Oren Jacoby
Don Cheadle, Suzan-Lori Parks
An intimate portrait of Suzan-Lori Parks, featuring actors Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. The film shows the playwright’s process and how a play gets produced in behind-the-scenes footage of Topdog/Underdog in rehearsal and performance. It captures the play’s triumphant Broadway debut and traces Parks’ opportunities, challenges, and personal milestones during the production of her 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner.
The Topdog Diaries
My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes
Oren Jacoby
MY ITALIAN SECRET tells a heroic story that was all but lost to history, until now. The film recounts how WWII bicycling idol Gino Bartali, physician Giovanni Borromeo and other Italians worked with Jewish leaders and high-ranking officials of the Catholic Church, risking their lives by defying the Nazis to save thousands of Italy’s Jews.
My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes
On Broadway
Oren Jacoby
Alec Baldwin, Christine Baranski
An all-star cast tells the inside story of the Broadway theater, and how it came back from the brink thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion and a sometimes uneasy balance between art and commerce. Legends of the stage and screen—including Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, August Wilson, James Corden, Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Viola Davis, Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen—take us behind the scenes of Broadway's most groundbreaking and beloved shows, from A Chorus Line to Hamilton. Iconic performances by Lin Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones and Mandy Patinkin lead the way on a hurly burly ride through Times Square, once again the main street of American show business in this documentary directed by Academy-Award nominee Oren Jacoby.
On Broadway
Sister Rose's Passion
Oren Jacoby
Celebrates Sister Rose Thering, for 67 years a Dominican nun. Her passion is anti-Semitism. Archival footage looks at her growing up in Wisconsin and taking the veil in her teens. Interviews with scholars and common people capture the extent to which "Christ killers" was a standard Catholic description of Jews. Sister Rose's research at Saint Louis University in the 1950s into the presentation of Jews within Catholic educational materials leads to the publication of "Nostra Aetate," a document released in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council. Since that time, she's dedicated herself to eradicating anti-Semitism. The film ends with a critique of Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ."
Sister Rose's Passion
