Will Roberts

Academy Award winning filmmaker Will Roberts has worked in film, television and communications for over 25 years. As a producer/director of documentary work, his films have won top awards from The American Film Festival, The Information Film Producers of America, The National Council on Family Relationships, Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, The Festival of the Americas, and The International Film Festivals of Antwerp, Chicago, Denver, New York, Mannheim, Moscow, Leipzig, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sydney, Perth, Popoli and Thessaloniki. His work has been featured at museums, libraries, universities and theaters throughout the world. Roberts has produced and directed film and video shoots throughout the US, Europe, South America, Central America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He has, in most of these instances, worked with local crews, television technicians and services. He has done freelance work/licensed material to CBS 60 Minutes, NBC Nightly News , Good Morning America, PBS, Bravo, BBC, and TV in Argentina, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Sweden. Roberts has received grants from The American Film Institute, The Ohio Arts Council and The National Endowment for the Arts. He has worked on projects for the National Endowment for the Humanities, CPB, PBS, the Peace Child Foundation, and the United Nations. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Citizen's Committee for the Arts and as a juror at major international film festivals. An Ohio native, Roberts graduated from Antioch College with a BA in Communications, Pre-Law in 1974. His Senior Project, a 16mm, 43 minute film titled "Men's Lives" (a documentary film about growing up male in America, made with classmate Joshua Hanig) received the Academy Award for Best Student Documentary(1975). It would become one of the most widely viewed educational films of its time. Roberts did graduate work in Film, Television and Mass Communications at Ohio University in Athens. His Senior Thesis Project, a 57 minute film, "Between Men" (a documentary about masculinity and the military in the USA) would become the only film to win both the Critic's Medallion at the Moscow International Film Festival and the George Washington Honor Medal from Freedom's Foundation at Valley Forge (1979). As a visiting professor at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Roberts taught courses in beginning, intermediate and advanced film and video production. He created the course Master's and Mentors of Communications, bringing in prominent communications professionals (actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, writers, etc.) to present and discuss their work (1987-88). Over the course of his 30 years as a journalist/filmmaker Roberts has interviewed thousands of subjects. These include such notables as George Harrison, Daniel Ortega, Stas Namin, Rod Serling, Buffy Saint Marie, Ernesto Cardinalli, Renate Blume, Cliff Robertson, Ravi Shankar, Patti Smith, Phil Everly, Tikhon Khrenikov, King Vidor, Yoko Ono and hundreds of "on the street" and "location specific"interviews in many situations and countries with a wide diversity of children and adults. He has been a featured speaker and presenter at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The American Film Institute, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Whitney, The International Conference on World Affairs, The Palace of Cultural Affairs in Lisbon, The Hall of Cinema in Moscow , The Mannheim Palace in Germany, The National Men's Conference, The Honolulu Friends Gathering, The Committee for World Democracy, The San Francisco Press Club, and at hundreds of other universities, museums, libraries, and conferences. He has worked as co-director/co-producer with film and television composer Ben Vaughn on a new documentary digital feature with the working title "The Geator with the Heater". The film tells the story of legendary, R&B disc jockey, Jerry Blavatt. Excerpts are currently available on You Tube. Recently Roberts worked with the Director Joe Terrence Gray and The International Bluegrass Music Museum doing interviews for their Video Oral History Project. Roberts was interviewed and provided archive material for the German Film "Der Rote Elvis." (2007), and has assisted with providing materials for the German Website deanreed.de.