One of the special guest at the 18th Edition of Plus Camerimage 2010 will be an internationally acclaimed non-fiction filmmaker, director, producer, writer and editor Robert P. Epstein. He will also serve as the Jury Chairman of the Short Documentary Films Competition “World of Images - Images of The World", held under the patronage of Discovery Networks Central Europe.

Robert Epstein

The organizers of Plus Camerimage will present a retrospective review of Robert P. Epstein's greatest achievements, including his new film Howl which explores the obscenity trial of 20th century American poet Allen Ginsberg's famous poem. The film was lined up for this year's Berlinale Film Festival and was competing for the Golden Bear as well as for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival.

Robert Epstein won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary for the films: The Times of Harvey Milk and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. He was also a recipient of four national Emmy Awards and three Peabody Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship. For the document Paragraph 175, a film that explores a hidden chapter in history: the experiences of homosexuals during the Nazi regime in Europe he received the FIPRESCI Award at Berlinale but also the Grand Jury Prize for Directing at Sundance. In the next few years he was nominated to the GLAAD Media Award and Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.

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Rob's work has been shown not only in theaters and on the television but also at the prestigious gallery spaces throughout the world such as MOMA in NYC. Moreover, the retrospectives of his documentary filmmaking achievements had been presented at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London and the Taiwan International Film Festival. In 2008, Epstein won the International Documentary Association's Pioneer Award, in recognition of his significant contributions to advancing both the art and future of documentary filmmaking.

In addition to his filmmaking career, Rob is a professor at California College of the Arts, where he also serves as the chair of the Film program. He has also been a visiting professor at the Graduate Film Program at Tisch School of the Arts/NYU. He currently serves on the board of the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts in San Francisco. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, and of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he currently serves on the Board of Governors and is the chair of the documentary branch. Since 1987, in collaboration with Jeffrey Friedman, he has been running Telling Pictures, a film production company.

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