birth_place image article_title occupation
great neck , new york , united states director stephen auerbach downtown los angeles.png stephen auerbach
 director , editor , writer
stephen auerbach

stephen auerbach -lrb- born august 8 -rrb- is a santa monica , california based american filmmaker and social media entrepreneur who specializes in feature-length documentaries and non-fiction television programming .
auerbach 's first feature documentary , `` race across america '' aired on nbc and received the highest ratings in the network 's history for a cycling event .
the film went on to win the grand jury prize at the boulder international film festival .
his follow-up film , `` bicycle dreams '' , was released in 2009 .
during production , auerbach had stretches of 36 hours without sleep in order to document the continuous race and to experience the sleep deprivation of its participants .
bicycle dreams has received 17 major film festival awards , including best feature documentary at the yosemite film festival , grand rapids film festival , red rock film festival , solstice film festival , lake arrowhead film festival , fallbrook film festival , los angeles sports film festival , and the breckenridge film festival .
other films directed by auerbach include `` the circus comes to town '' , about traveling circus troupes of the great depression era , and `` the memory box '' , about a group of african social activists working to lift ethiopia out of poverty and despair .
auerbach has also won multiple film festival awards for his work as a film editor .
prior to his entrance into the world of independent filmmaking , auerbach had executive produced , produced , directed , or written over 125 hours of programming for major network broadcast outlets , including abc-tv , nbc-tv , fox-tv , tlc , and discovery .
auerbach began his career as a staff writer for comedian richard belzer .
