PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS

Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond are among America’s most influential and distinguished independent documentary producers and directors. The films of Alan and Susan Raymond reflect our society’s changing values and mark television history.

As the filmmakers of the seminal 1973 PBS cinema vérité series An American Family, the Raymonds captured the daily life of the Loud family that foreshadowed America’s rising divorce rate and the emergence of the gay liberation movement. TV Guide designated the series as "one of the 50 Greatest TV Programs" and pronounced it to be the first reality TV series.

The Raymonds continued a friendship with the Loud family that spanned 30 years and produced two additional films: American Family Revisited (HBO 1983) which explored the family’s perspective on being media celebrities and their reflections on the evening of the parents’ separation. In the fall of 2002 as he entered a hospice, Lance Loud, the eldest son of the family, requested that the Raymonds make a final film of his life. Lance Loud! A Death in An American Family celebrates the life and legacy of Lance Loud as a gay icon and the first reality TV star. The national broadcast on PBS in 2003 commemorated the 30th anniversary of the original landmark series.

Their most recent film, How Do You Spell Murder? (Cinemax Reel Life 2003) chronicled a maximum-security prison inmate-run literacy program. The documentary, which explored the connection between education and crime, won the 2003 Literacy in Media Award.

The Raymonds received international acclaim for Children in War, (HBO 2000) a disturbing look at the effect of war and terrorism on the lives of children in Bosnia, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine. They also wrote a book for HarperCollins about their experiences making the film also entitled Children in War. The documentary received a Prime Time Emmy for Outstanding Information Special in 2000 and a United Nations UNESCO Award.

In 1994 the Academy Award® for Best Feature Documentary was awarded to the Raymonds for I Am A Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School (HBO 1993). The film captured the life of an inner-city elementary school and signaled the deterioration of our nation’s public school system and won a Prime Time Emmy, Peabody and DuPont Awards.

The Raymonds received their first Academy Award® nomination for Doing Time: Life Inside the Big House (HBO 1990). The film explores the psychological effects of long-term incarceration on inmates in the Lewisberg federal penitentiary, where rehabilitation and parole have all but been abandoned. The film was awarded the News and Documentary Emmy Award for Best Director.

The Raymonds’ first independent production was an experimental video called The Police Tapes (WNET New York 1977, ABC News 1978) that forever changed the TV landscape. The program chronicled police officers in America’s highest crime precinct and captured a South Bronx neighborhood in the process of self-destructing. This program has been honored with four Emmys, an Alfred I. DuPont and George Foster Peabody awards. The Police Tapes has been recognized in the film and television industry as a major influence on police dramas and the many reality TV cop shows that followed. Steve Bochco, creator and Executive Producer of Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, commented upon his inspiration in American Film magazine, July 1988:

"But we really stole the style of Hill Street Blues from something called The Police Tapes ... It was one of the most arresting things I’d ever seen in my life. We said, 'This is the feeling we want. We want to create something that gives the illusion of random event.' "

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times film critic, wrote in a June 2002 Sunday article on reality cop shows influencing the movies and recognized the Raymonds’ contribution:

"Through their Police Tapes, the Raymonds have assured themselves a spot in movie history: the DNA of their original has found its way into the film mainstream through Cops."

The Raymonds continue to specialize in feature length documentaries that have included topics such as education, prisoner’s rights, religion, police, urban blues and Elvis. Their films have been broadcast on PBS, ABC News, HBO, CINEMAX and the BBC.

Many of the Raymonds' films are in the permanent collections of museums and public libraries, such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Broadcasting in New York City as well as the Bibliotheque National in Paris. In 1995, the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles held a retrospective screening of the Raymonds' films. The Raymonds have been the recipients of an artists grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York State Council of the Arts.