About Jude Ray
Byline:
Jude Ray is an award-winning filmmaker of social issue, cultural, and historical documentaries and investigative reports. Her credits include programs on PBS, HBO, BBC, A&E, and Turner Broadcasting. She was co-director (with Katrina Browne and Alla Kovgan) and executive producer for the film “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” which is featured at this year's Sundance Film Festival. You can contact Ms. Ray at [email protected].
Broadcast Bio:
Our guest today is Jude Ray, an award-winning filmmaker of social issue, cultural, and historical documentaries. She was co-director (with Katrina Browne and Alla Kovgan) and executive producer for the film “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North.” The film follows ten descendants of this country’s most prolific slave-trading family as they retrace the “Triangle Trade” and confront their ancestors’ troubling past. The film is featured in the main competition this year at the Sundance Film Festival and is slated to be broadcast nationally on PBS’s preeminent documentary series, P.O.V. Welcome, Ms. Ray. [General Intro]
Our guest today is Jude Ray, an award-winning filmmaker of social issue, cultural, and historical documentaries. Her credits include programs on PBS, HBO, BBC, A&E, and Turner Broadcasting. She co-directed (with Katrina Browne and Alla Kovgan) and executive produced the film “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” which is featured at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Welcome, Ms. Ray.
Full Bio:
Jude Ray is an award-winning filmmaker of social issue, cultural, and historical documentaries and investigative reports. She co-directed the film “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” with Alla Kovgan and Katrina Browne. “Traces” is featured at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, competing in the main documentary category. Ms. Ray also served as the film’s executive producer.
Ms. Ray began her career in social issue media before even completing her undergraduate degree, serving as director of issues research and public information and later as campaign manager for the first woman to run for the Pennsylvania Legislature.
She went on to work on political advertising for the noted media consulting firm the Sawyer-Miller Group and spent five years with the BBC as an investigative reporter, U.S. producer, and field, segment, and associate producer for the acclaimed public affairs special series “Panorama” and "Timewatch."
All of Ms. Ray's producing, associate producing, and writing credits are for prime-time, ground-breaking documentary specials and series for major broadcasters. These include Fare Game, a feature about hunting and the transformation of traditional values in rural America (premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, PBS international broadcast); What Price Clean Air? (for PBS); Russia for Sale: The Hard Road to Capitalism; “Increase and Multiply” (an investigation into the
She has served as Senior Writer and Consulting Producer for many independent feature docs, including H-2 Worker, chronicling the lives of migrant workers (Grand Jury Prize, Sundance, New Directors/New Films) and Calling the Ghosts: A Story about Rape, War, and Women about the victims of mass rape in Bosnia (Sundance/Soros Fund, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, theatrical distribution, HBO/Cinemax).
Ms. Ray has produced and consulted with independent filmmakers, many of them first-timers, creating successful funding, sales, and distribution strategies for a broad range of projects and representing them at national and international markets, including the Independent Feature Market, IFFCON, and the IDFA in
A featured speaker for public events, Ms. Ray regularly appears on panels about documentary filmmaking and women in media (including the Philadelphia Film Commission). She teaches filmmaking to children of all ages in schools and workshops, leads workshops for film professionals (Women Make Movies), and has served as a Cable Ace Awards Juror.
Ms. Ray is a Recipient of the National Women in Broadcast and Radio Award and numerous grant awards, including the Kheil Fund, NEH, Funding Exchange, North Star Fund, and New York Times Foundation for her post-9/11 work on trauma relief for parents and children affected by the tragedy.