Deb Ellis

Deb Ellis is an award-winning independent film/video maker and educator.

Her film, Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train had its theatrical release by First Run Features in 2004. The film won the Audience Award – Best Documentary at the Provincetown International Film Festival.

Earlier work includes SKIN DEEP, an examination of the development, testing, promotion, and use of the sub-dermal contraceptive, Norplant; The FBI's War on Black America, an examination of the lives and deaths 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 an older Vermont woman who lived alone her farm with fifty horses. Ellis’ work has won awards at film festivals and has been supported by numerous grant awards.

Ellis spent 14 years in Chicago working in the independent film community and teaching at local colleges and media centers. She has worked on many projects about subjects ranging from police brutality to welfare rights, including serving as production manager for the documentary The End of the Nightstick: Police Brutality in Chicago, a rigorous examination of brutality and torture within the Chicago Police Department that appeared on the PBS series POV.

Today, she continues her active participation in the independent community in Vermont, serving on the board of the Vermont International Film Festival, and working as an independent producer. As an independent producer, Ellis works with clients including individual artists, education and arts organizations, and local non-profit organizations. Her work tends toward issues of social justice.

Ellis also maintains a strong interest in emerging technologies. She is particularly interested to watch how various organizations in the US and Central America are using video and radio to create community and political strength. (12/07)

Skin Deep
A film by Alexandra Halkin and Deb Ellis, 1997, 15 min., Color
SKIN DEEP combines views from Norplant users, community health advocates, and experts in a social and political analysis of the use of this new contra...