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Alison Chernick  

Grammy Nominated Film Director

Chernick's first documentary was on contemporary artist Jeff Koons, titled The Jeff Koons Show (2005). Her second feature-length documentary on artist Matthew Barney, titled Matthew Barney No Restraint, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006 and was acquired for theatrical distribution by IFC and The Weinstein Company. In 2006 she founded the production company Voyeur Films.

She directed a film on Roy Lichtenstein to accompany the Tate Modern exhibition Lichtenstein: A Retrospective in 2013 titled Diagram of an Artist: Roy Lichtenstein. Her short film on designer/artist Martin Margiela titled The Artist is Absent premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015. Her latest feature documentary, on violinist Itzhak Perlman, titled Itzhak was nominated for numerous awards including the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Music Film. It was the opening night film at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 2017 and received a worldwide theatrical release in 2018 followed by a PBS American Masters broadcast release. A new short film commissioned by The National Gallery of Australia titled Jackson Pollock: Blue Poles will be released in 2019.

Chernick is the recipient of a National Endowment for The Humanities award, a New York Women in Film and Television award, a Loreen Arbus grant and a Woman of Her Word grant. She was invited to judge for the National Endowment for The Humanities in 2018.

Chernick's documentaries have been screened at various museums around the world, including the five Guggenheims, the Smithsonian, SFMOMA, and the Walker. She has written for the Sundance Channel, Showtime, SyFy, MTV, VH1, The History Channel, and National Geographic. Her commissioned short films often center around themes of art, fashion, music, gastronomy, and health. In 2010, Chernick was signed for global commercial representation.

Speech Topics


Film, Directing, Documentary

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