Image: Director Alfonso Arau prepares for his 2016 Academy Visual History at his home in Mexico City.
Since 2012 the Academy’s Visual History Program has been recording oral histories on HD born-digital video, seeking to document diverse representatives from a wide variety of film professions. Some of the collection’s interviewees include: Emmanuelle Riva, Dennis Muren, Albert Maysles, Gena Rowlands, Jiri Menzel, Sharmila Tagore, Luis Valdez, Thelma Schoonmaker, Barbara Hammer, Masahiro Shinoda, Tony Walton, Irwin Young, Alejandro González Iñárritu, DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus and Mira Nair. To date, the program has conducted more than 200 interviews, shooting an average of 25 per year. Interviews have been recorded in: Southern California, San Francisco Bay Area, New York Tri-State Area, Japan, Mexico City, Europe and South America. Interviews generally range from 2-6 hours long. The collection includes video, photos and transcripts. Transcripts are available on request.
To browse the Visual History Collection, click here
To view interviews included as part of the 2017 PST LA/LA Cultural Festival, click here