Biography
Abby Ginzberg, a Peabody award-winning director, has been producing compelling documentaries about race and social justice for over 30 years. Her film, And Then They Came for Us (2017, featuring George Takei), about the connection between the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WW II and the current Muslim travel ban won a Silver Gavel Award and has played in major cities, at film festivals across the country and in Japan. Throughout the course of the last year, she has presented the film to college audiences, community groups and in theaters.
Ginzberg co-produced and co-directed Agents of Change (2016; with Frank Dawson, featuring Danny Glover), which premiered at the Pan African Film Festival where it won the Jury and the Audience Awards for Best Feature Documentary and a Paul Robeson Award from the Newark Black Film Festival. It was supported by California Humanities and broadcast on America Reframed in 2018 and 2019. Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa (Executive Produced by Alfre Woodard, featuring Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa) won a 2015 Peabody award and has screened at film festivals around the world, winning four audience awards. It was broadcast on public television in July, 2016. She was the Consulting Producer on The Barber of Birmingham, which premiered at Sundance in 2011 and was nominated for an Oscar® in the Short Doc category in 2012. The film was directed by Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin.
Ginzberg has also produced and directed two award-winning films about little known judges from California. Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson's American Journey (2005) profiled the life and career of one of the first African American judges on the federal bench in San Francisco. Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice documented the story of a son of farmworkers who went on to become the first Latino to be appointed to the California Supreme Court.
Ginzberg's film, Waging Change (featuring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) about the challenges faced by restaurant servers forced to live off tips, will premiere at DOC NYC in November, 2019.
Ginzberg is currently completing Stay Woke: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me (featuring Danny Glover, Alice Walker, Van Jones, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rep. John Lewis), a documentary about Rep. Barbara Lee, who cast the lone NO vote in Congress against the blanket authorization of military force following 9/11 and who has spent the last 21 years in Congress as a consistent voice for peace and justice.
