Biography
Michael Camerini shoots, directs and produces documentary films and series that travel across geographical and subject areas as diverse as women's rights and social change in India, artists both famous and not yet so, and the struggle to balance religious and cultural identity with mainstream values in the United States. Beginning with his very first documentary, "Banaras", shot as a college junior abroad, his approach to filmmaking has been notable for a camera technique that is fluid and non-intrusive, and a style of filming that encourages extraordinary access, as people tell their own stories, whatever the cultural context. An interest in what it means to be a foreigner is the unifying theme in his work. In 1994, Camerini teamed up with future spouse Shari Robertson, who had also been making films about cultures and political situations outside the US for years before they met. Their New York City production company is The Epidavros Project. Together they have filmed girls fighting for an education in Malawi, oilmen in Eastern Java, parliamentarians throughout Africa, coca growers in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley, tribal elders in Northeast Guinea and a young rapper with a social mission in Niger - always working to understand and translate into film the life experience of their subjects. In 2000, they completed their first US collaboration, a searing in-depth study of the American political asylum system which became the basis for the ground-breaking documentary, "Well-Founded Fear". In the summer of 2001, still in the United States, they began following the path of a think tank idea about the right way to achieve a historic immigration reform - something that looked likely to become the law of the land within the year. It was a fast track deep into American politics, the most compelling and by far most complex culture they had ever tackled. Twelve years later, Epidavros debuted the full series of ten feature-length documentaries, "How Democracy Works Now" at the 51st New York Film Festival. Two years after that, the capstone of a 14-year ethnographic journey, their encore feature "Immigration Battle" also premiered at the 53rd New York Film Festival, followed by a special 2-hour national broadcast on PBS Frontline. In 2016, they returned to form with a film on Countering Violent Extremism, "Tales of Resilience" , shot in a place they still call The Country At The Center Of The World - Niger. But the recent US elections were a reminder they what they've learned about American politics can be more useful now than ever. New Projects are in the works.
