Vanessa Roth
July Filmmaker of the Month
VANESSA ROTH (Director/Writer/Producer) has garnered the highest honors in film, television and journalism during a documentary filmmaking career spanning more than 25 years. These include an Academy Award, The Television Academy EMMY Honors, multiple Sundance honors, the DuPont-Columbia Award, dozens of “Best of Festival” and audience awards as well as top honors for work in social impact, mental health, witness to history and legacy, youth empowerment and women’s rights. Some of her most notable work includes executive producer, writer, and director of the Television Academy Honors-winning international series Daughters of Destiny (Netflix Originals), producer of the Oscar-winning documentary Freeheld (HBO), director of the award winning film Liberation Heroes: The Last Eyewitnesses, Producer and Director of the award winning feature, American Teacher, producer and director of the ESPN 30for30 short, The Other Side, executive producer and director of the acclaimed series National Geographic Presents IMPACT with Gal Gadot (National Geographic Originals) and Director of the upcoming Mary J. Blige’s My Life (Amazon Originals).
Known for her collaborative approach with her subjects, Roth creates intimate, cinematic and lyrical films that amplify narratives from around the world that are often invisible. She has made feature films around the world and created content for Netflix, Amazon, Disney, ESPN, PBS, A&E, NBC, National Geographic, Discovery, UNESCO, President Obama’s inaugural events, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the USC/Shoah Foundation, and for special exhibits at international museums. She has been a TEDx speaker as well as keynote speaker and adjunct professor for universities, organizations and foundations about ethics, social impact, women and children’s rights and storytelling.
Roth earned a bachelors’ degree in creative writing and psychology from UCLA and holds a masters’ degree in social work and minor in family law from Columbia University. Before making films, Roth worked as a child advocate in New York and California family courts, schools, and hospitals.
She lives in New York with her husband and three children including singer/songwriter Maya Donovan. Her father is Academy Award- winning screenwriter, Eric Roth.
Roth owns and runs her production company Big Year Productions, inc and is represented for film and television by WME(Ryan McNeily and Maggie Pisacane).
Filmmaker Interview
Tell us your backstory. How and why did you get into filmmaking?
I grew up with storytelling all around me.My grandparents were in the movie business and my dad is a screenwriter who works from home and so as a kid his typewriter was my soundtrack. And my mom was an archeologist who would come home from her digs and tell me the stories of the people whose lives she found artifacts and clues to how they lived, and what was important to them. So, I was brought up with the feeling that everything about how we relate to each other, how we connect, how we heal, how we pass down memory is all in storytelling.I also grew up feeling very committed to living a life that spoke out for and acted on social injustice, on people being treated with dignity and their lives valued. So making documentaries was a pretty direct connection to who and what I was surrounded by in my childhood and the values I held close.It has been a way to give voice and space to narratives that have gone unseen and unheard and using story to get at deeper human themes that we can all relate to and connect us.
What are the specific qualities that, in your opinion, make a film great?
The two things that make a film or a book or a song or any kind of storytelling great to me are that one – they are authentic in that the creators and subjects (or actors or performers) are telling a story they believe in and care about – that they were pulled into the story because it spoke to their core – to some bigger truth that needed to be excavated. I think you can feel that when you watch something.Secondly, a film is great to me when it isabout something –it is not just a linear story that takes us from point A to point B – but that we are only going from point A to point B as a way to understand a deeper theme.So every project I do – I first ask myself not what happens in the story but rather – what is this about?
What’s harder? Getting started or being able to keep going? And what drives you to continue making films?
Well when you start that feels like the hardest thing because you have no map and you are all full of fear and “what ifs” and at the same time this hubris of inexperience that gives you a confidence and optimism to get started in the first place.
And that’s how I felt when I first started filmmaking and every time I start a new project – that mix of fear and excitement about what I don’t know.
But after making films for over 25 years now I have to say that to keep going whether it be in a career or in the midst of a project that feels impossible – it is much harder to keep going because you now know how hard it is and how many hurdles there will be and on top of that life keeps adding more and more on your plate whether it’s having kids or parents or partners in your life or finances to worry about- or a once in a hundred year pandemic ! And after every film I do I pledge to myself and my family that I am done making films because they are too hard and take too much out of me – but then something happens where I feel the impact the film had on someone, or I watch the film with one of the subjects and I remember why I do this work – which is these human connections and stories that get formed through the process of filmmaking that have become the fabric of my life.
What is your favorite aspect of film production? I have a love/hate relationship with every aspect except for the moments I get to spend with people I am making films about – that collaboration and that trust and bond we form is my most treasured time. I also do get so much from learning from and admiring in the people I work with – and in the writing process of the edit – which is such a struggle so much of the time as we try to get it right – but when you finally have those moments that work it is such a satisfying feeling.
If there is one or more thing you think would make the film industry better, what would it be? For the documentary world in particular, I would like to see a time where doc filmmakers are paid more in line with what it takes to pull off this type of work, and an understanding in the film industry of what this kind of work entails. And like the writers and directors and actors of the narrative world fought so hard for their protections in health care and equity and long-term support– I feel it’s time that doc filmmakers also had some safety nets and support and to push the film industry leaders to value the doc filmmakers themselves as much as the documentaries are serving their distribution channels and brands.