ANNE MAKEPEACE has been a writer, producer, and director of award-winning independent films for more than twenty years. She is currently working on a documentary about the return of the Wampanoag language, the first time a language with no native speakers has been revived in an American Indian community.  The project was awarded a development grant from the Sundance Documentary Fund late in 2007, and Makepeace recently received both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship in support of the project.  She is also finishing a documentary about the architect I. M. Pei and his recently completed Suzhou Museum, entitled BUILDING CHINA MODERN.

Her most recent completed work, a feature documentary entitled RAIN IN A DRY LAND, chronicles the journey of two Somali Bantu refugee families from Africa through their first two years in America. RAIN IN A DRY LAND had a limited theatrical release through Emerging Pictures, and continues a far-ranging outreach campaign designed by Active Voice. The film has won many awards, including the Working Films Award from the Full Frame film festival, had its broadcast premiere  nationally as the lead show on PBS’ P.O.V. series in June 2007.

In 2005, Makepeace completed a short film about the indomitable Eleanor Roosevelt.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: CLOSE TO HOME is now being shown repeatedly in her Val Kill home, a museum in Hyde Park, NY.

In 2003, Makepeace completed ROBERT CAPA IN LOVE AND WAR for the American Masters series. The film premiered at Sundance and was broadcast nationally on the American Masters series on PBS, on the BBC, and on many other foreign stations, winning a national prime time Emmy as well as the Voice for Humanity Award at Telluride MountainFilm.

COMING TO LIGHT, her documentary about Edward S. Curtis, the pre-eminent photographer of Native Americans, was short-listed for an Academy Award in the feature documentary category, premiered at Sundance 2000, and was broadcast on American Masters/PBS in 2001, on Arte in France and Germany, and other foreign stations. COMING TO LIGHT won the O’Connor Award for Best Film from the American Historical Association, an Award of Excellence from the American Anthropological Association, a Gold Hugo award from Chicago, Best Documentary at Telluride, and many other awards. Makepeace also completed a book about Edward Curtis that year called, Edward S. Curtis, Coming to Light.

After years of working in the narrative feature world, Makepeace made her first documentary in 1998. An intimate personal film that explores the world of fertility intervention through the lens of her own experiences, BABY IT’S YOU premiered at Sundance 1998, was the lead show on P.O.V.’s 1998 season, and was broadcast on Channel 4’s True Stories series. BABY IT’S YOU also screened as part of the Whitney Biennial 2000.

Makepeace also wrote the screenplay for the successful THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD, an American Playhouse Theatrical feature, and the American Experience documentary ISHI, THE LAST YAHI. She wrote, produced and directed the dramatic films NIGHT DRIVING, starring William Sadler, for Showtime Networks, Inc.; WILDEST DREAMS starring William Petersen and Rebecca Jenkins; MOONCHILD, an award-winning docudrama broadcast nationally on PBS about a religious cult; and WHISTLE IN THE WIND, a bi-lingual short drama about a Bolivian boy and his llama.

Anne Makepeace has twice been a writer/director fellow at the Sundance Institute’s June laboratory, and served on the Sundance 2001 Film Festival’s documentary jury. In additon to PBS, her films have been broadcast on Showtime, Bravo, HBO, NHK, the BBC, Channel 4 (UK), ABC Australia, ZDF Germany, Thames Television (UK) and many other networks around the world. In addition to many festivals, her films have been screened at the Whitney Biennial, the Smithsonian, the Musée de l’Homme, the Museum of the American Indian, and many other museums, schools, colleges, and movie theaters around the country. Her work has been funded by the Pulitzer Foundation, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting , ITVS, the NEA, the NEH, the Ford Foundation, American Masters, Showtime Networks Inc., HBO, A&E, and the American Film Institute.