Award-winning filmmaker and educator, Deb Ellis teaches courses in film and video production, documentary production and history, and film studies. Ellis is active in the independent film community in Vermont, currently serving as President of the Vermont International Film Festival. Ellis also continues her work with local organizations, including work on “Voices of Vermonters”
Ellis’s documentary, “Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train,” was short-listed with twelve films from which the 2005 Academy Award nominees were chosen. The film was released theatrically, and is now widely available on DVD. Earlier work includes “Skin Deep,” an examination of the development and promotion of the sub-dermal contraceptive, Norplant; “The FBI’s War on Black America,” an examination of targets of COINTELPRO, an FBI program instituted in the 1960’s with a mandate to “prevent the rise of a Black Messiah”; “Unbidden Voices,” about the immigrant experience of an Indian woman working in Chicago, and “Doris Eddy,” an intimate portrait of a Vermont woman who lived alone on her farm with 50 horses. Ellis is currently developing new projects. Links to selected works are below.