Bill Nichols(IV)
Bill Nichols is an American film critic and theoretician best known for his pioneering work as founder of the contemporary study of documentary film. His 1991 book, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, applied modern film theory to the study of documentary film for the first time. He's served as a documentary filmmaking consultant, lecturer, film festival jurist and writer. He spends most of my time writing fiction but continues to write about film as well. His writing explores trauma and its consequences, including how parents and children help and harm each other. His current project, Past Imperfect, follows a young woman in San Francisco, building a career as an artistic photographer, as she deals with a family legacy of abuse and a missing parent who returns in a mysterious way.
He currently consults with documentary filmmakers on various projects ranging from an exploration of the consequences of Wounded Knee on participants in that historic event to an environmental, interactive journey down the Mississippi River from its headwaters to the Gulf, and from a study of the sometimes parallel and often divergent lives of two Mexican-Americans, one in prison, the other the filmmaker, to an overview of the global issues surrounding the production of food in its modern, industrialized forms.
He has served on film festival juries in the Netherlands, Korea, the Czech Republic, and Brazil to name a few and has lectured in numerous countries in Europe, Asia and South America as well as at dozens of universities and other venues in the United States.
He currently consults with documentary filmmakers on various projects ranging from an exploration of the consequences of Wounded Knee on participants in that historic event to an environmental, interactive journey down the Mississippi River from its headwaters to the Gulf, and from a study of the sometimes parallel and often divergent lives of two Mexican-Americans, one in prison, the other the filmmaker, to an overview of the global issues surrounding the production of food in its modern, industrialized forms.
He has served on film festival juries in the Netherlands, Korea, the Czech Republic, and Brazil to name a few and has lectured in numerous countries in Europe, Asia and South America as well as at dozens of universities and other venues in the United States.