Kevin Kelley
filmmaker
Biographical Info
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Kevin Kelley has been a filmmaker for over forty years. His work has been honored with two regional EMMY© Awards, two CINE (´sini) Golden Eagle Awards, and three New York Festival World Medals. His work has been screened at The Los Angeles International Documentary Film Festival, The Newport Beach Film Festival, The New York Filmmakers Festival and aired nationally on PBS and HBO. Kelley’s films have been screened for audiences around the world including: Germany, Spain, England, Italy and Australia. In 2017, he and co-founder, Marie Wilkes, created a non-profit organization, New Mile Media Arts, whose purpose is to educate and inspire through the art of filmmaking, presenting unique stories of common people in uncommon situations. Mural: Story of a Modern Masterpiece is available in its entirety on Iowa Public Television in 2016.
Current Production: Stout Hearted: Gearge Stout and the Guardians of Art tells the story of George L. Stout, an art student from Winterset, Iowa, who became the leader of the Monuments Men during World War II. This group, a military special forces unit, was assigned the mission of retrieving stolen art from the Nazis. The film also explores Stout’s pioneering efforts in the areas of art conservation, which elevated this discipline into the world of modern science. Many of his innovations are used today to preserve masterworks from deterioration and extinction. Today, the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield continues the work of Stout L. Stout and The Monuments Men by protecting cultural heritage globally. (english, color 81 mins.) Watch the trailer.
New Project: Elizabeth Catlett, 1973 – A feature length documentary on the inspiring life of Elizabeth Catlett, sculptor, printmaker, educator and social activist, will be produced and presented to audiences through film footage and audio recordings of Catlett, historic footage of pre-and-post Civil Rights Movement, and through interviews with experts in the arts, humanities and the African American diaspora, contemporary artists of color, and family and friends who knew her personally. Her relationships with University of Iowa professor and mentor, Grant Wood, and her lifelong friendship with the poet, Margaret Walker, will be explored. Catlett’s story will cover her upbringing and education in Washington DC, her college years at the University of Iowa (where she was the first visual arts student in the United States to receive a Master of Fine Art degree), and her dawning activism through her involvement as a Chicago and Harlem Renassance artist and educator. More . . .
