Ellen Spiro
Ellen Spiro is an American documentary filmmaker. She was a producer and director of a television documentary "Are the kids alright?" [sic], which won an Emmy Award in 2005. She is a professor emerita of the University of Texas at Austin, where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in documentary, experimental film and music film production. She is a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Career. She created the 10 Under 10 Film Festival in Austin, TX. In 2006 she was awarded an artist's residency at the Bellagio Center, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation , in Bellagio, Italy. She worked with Phil Donahue on "Body of War", a film about paralyzed Iraq War veteran Tomas Young, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won a 'People's Choice Award' and the 'Audience Award for Best Documentary' at the Hamptons International Film Festival. It was shortlisted for nomination for an Academy Award in 2007. In December, Body of War was named Best Documentary of 2007 by the National Board of Review. She was voted one of the "top 10 professors" by students at the University of Texas in 2018.