Ken Burns

Award-winning documentary filmmaker

Ken Burns has been making documentary films for more than thirty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, he has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made. Historian Stephen Ambrose has said of Ken's films: "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source."

A perennial figure on PBS, Burns is the creator, director and producer of numerous award-winning documentaries, including Jazz, Civil War, Baseball, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea and The Tenth Inning.  His most recent documentary is Prohibition – a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed. The film premiered October, 2011 on PBS.  Future projects also in the works include films on the Dust Bowl, the Roosevelts, the Vietnam War and the Central Park Jogger case.

Burns has also focused his lens a number of other topics, including: The War, an intimate look at the years 1941-1945; Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, which tells the story of the two women who almost single-handedly created and spearheaded the women's rights movement in America; Frank Lloyd Wright, the story of America's foremost architectural genius; and Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, which chronicles the first official expedition into uncharted spaces in United States history. Burns was co-producer of Mark Twain, a four-hour portrait of one of America’s funniest and most popular writers. A compelling storyteller, Burns speaks on these topics as well as the creative process.

Burns has been the recipient of more than twenty-five honorary degrees and has delivered many treasured commencement addresses.  He is a sought after public speaker, appearing at colleges, civic organizations and business groups throughout the country.