THE TELLING PICTURES STORY

In 1987 Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman set up an office in a former convent and Catholic girls’ school in San Francisco and started Telling Pictures. Rob had already established himself as one of the filmmakers of the landmark documentary Word Is Out, and with his Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk; Jeffrey had been working as a film editor and was now editing a piece that Rob was producing for PBS. Their creative styles clicked, and they decided to make a film together. Their first collaboration was another Oscar-winner, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. All told, they have produced four non-fiction feature films and numerous documentaries for television and corporate clients. Between them they have received two Academy Awards, multiple Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Fellowship.

Their recent television work includes producing and directing seven episodes of the Dick Wolf prime-time series Crime and Punishment, a non-fiction spin-off of "Law and Order" on NBC. They produced and directed Gold Rush, an episode for the History Channel series "Ten Days that Unexpectedly Changed America" (Emmy, Outstanding Nonfiction Series, 2006), and were series directors and segment producers for the PBS-Nightline newsmagazine Life 360 with Michel Martin.

Their documentary feature Paragraph 175 explores a hidden chapter in history: the experiences of homosexuals during the Nazi regime in Europe. Narrated by Rupert Everett, and filmed in Germany, France, England and Spain, Paragraph 175 tells a complex and moving story of persecution and resistance. The film had its US premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2000, where it was awarded the documentary jury prize for directing, followed by a European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where it won the FIPRESCI award from the International Film Critics' Association.

Their previous film The Celluloid Closet was a 100-year history of homosexual characters in Hollywood movies. They also produced, co-wrote, and Jeffrey co-edited this film. Based on the landmark book by Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet is narrated by Lily Tomlin, and features revealing behind-the-scenes interviews with the people who made the movies, including such actors as Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, and Shirley MacLaine; screenwriters Gore Vidal (Ben Hur, Suddenly Last Summer), Arthur Laurents (Rope) and Jay Presson Allen (Cabaret); and queer moviegoers from Armistead Maupin to Susie Bright to Quentin Crisp.

The Celluloid Closet had its world premiere at the glitzy, prestigious Venice Film Festival, was featured at the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival (where it won the Freedom of Expression Award), and numerous international festivals, including Berlin, Tokyo and Sydney. The Celluloid Closet had a wide theatrical release through Sony Pictures Classics, and has played as well in movie theaters from London and Paris to Tokyo. Its American television premiere was on HBO, for which it won a Peabody Award and a duPont-Columbia Award; it has also been seen by television audiences throughout the world, including on Channel 4 in the UK, and on ZDF/Arté in Germany and France. It won an Emmy Award for directing.

Rob and Jeffrey produced, directed, co-wrote and edited their first collaborative venture, Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt. Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, Common Threads uses the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to tell the story of the first decade of AIDS in the U.S., from the first whispers of a terrifying "gay cancer" and the discovery of a mysterious new virus, to the street activism provoked by the Reagan administration’s refusal to confront the growing epidemic. Common Threads premiered at the Berlin Film Festival (where it won the Interjury Award), and has been screened at festivals and on television around the world. Its U.S. premiere was on Home Box Office. Common Threads won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1990, as well as a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award, for Bobby McFerrin’s original score.

In a somewhat different vein, Jeffrey and Rob piled into a mini-van with a small film crew and set out across the American south and southwest, talking to people they met along the road. The result was Where Are We? (Our Trip Through America), a chronicle of the hopes and dreams, disappointments and joys of everyday Americans. Where are We? had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by festivals in San Francisco, Chicago, and Sydney. It was broadcast nationally on PBS, where it has found a small but loyal following.

And in an extremely different vein, Rob and Jeffrey made Xtreme: Sports To Die For a documentary special for HBO about the subculture of athletes devoted to extreme sports—skysurfing, street luge, and BMX dirt-bike jumping.

In addition to their feature doc credits, Jeffrey and Rob have produced a variety of programs and segments on such diverse topics as gay comedians, marijuana buyers' clubs, and a strip-club peep-show establishment owned and operated by women (for ABC, MSNBC and HBO, respectively). They have also produced films for such corporate clients as NASA, Stelsys Biotechnology, Citibank and San Francisco's Saint Mary’s Hospital. Rob and Jeffrey’s fiction work includes writing and directing three short film for the series Inside/Out, produced by Alan Poul for Propaganda Films and the Playboy Channel. They have served in a consulting capacity on a number of documentary projects (for information about consulting services, click here).

Jeffrey and Rob are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for which Rob also serves on the Board of Governors. They also consult from time to time with filmmakers in post-production; for more information, please contact us.