Press Release ................................................................

Contact: ..............................................................................March 1, 2005
Susan Clayton
Press Coordinator

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For 30 years of teaching and inspiring, Michael Rabiger
will be awarded during Opening Night Gala of
Chicago International Documentary Festival


8pm, Friday, April 1, 2005

Chicago, IL - - Writer, professor and documentary filmmaker Michael Rabiger will be presented with the 2005 Chicago International Documentary Festival (CIDF) Genius Career Achievement Award during the Opening Night Gala on Friday, April 1, 2005 at the Doc Films- Max Palevsky Cinema in Ida Noyes Hall (1212 E. 59th Street). Starting at 6:30pm, the gala will include a cocktail reception with live entertainment, followed by the award presentation and a film screening at 8pm. Tickets are $50 per person to attend the reception and screening or $20 per person for the screening alone.
The CIDF’s Genius Career Achievement Award is held in reserve for an individual that has made significant and enduring contributions to documentary filmmaking over his or her entire career. About Rabiger, festival director Christopher Kamyszew notes, “Michael Rabiger has had an extraordinary influence on an entire generation of documentary students and filmmakers. For more than three decades Michael cultivated his ideas into what is now the Michael Rabiger Center for Documentary at Columbia College Chicago and it’s one of the world’s premier institutions of documentary education and culture. We are very fortunate to have him right here in Chicago.”
Following in the path of his makeup artist father, Michael Rabiger went into the British film industry in 1956. At age of 17 he became an assistant film editor and went on to work on twelve feature films at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios. Rabiger shifted to television documentary in 1962 and edited roughly thirty films for BBC, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), Granada Television, among others. From 1967-1972, he directed twenty-one documentaries in six countries for BBC, and helped establish an oral history series.
Later in 1972, Rabiger journeyed to the US to teach at Columbia College Chicago (CCC) in what was then a commencing film department of just sixty students. He wrote reviews and criticism for the New Art Examiner, and in late 1980s published the first editions of DIRECTING THE DOCUMENTARY, DIRECTING: FILM TECHNIQUES AND AESTHETICS (both Focal Press: Boston). In 1988 he founded the Documentary Center at CCC before designing and leading the first VISIONS European documentary workshop for GEECT/CILECT, which met in Berlin, Prague, and Amsterdam, in 1994. During 1994-95 he was the distinguished visiting professor at New York University's Department of Film and Television and in 1996 he returned to Chicago to publish DEVELOPING STORY IDEAS (Focal Press: Boston). Plus, in 1996 he became Chair of CCC’s Film/Video Department, which now enlists more than 1,900 students. In 2001, Rabiger retired from teaching to write full-time and in that same year, the CCC’s Film/Video Department's documentary center was renamed "The Michael Rabiger Center for Documentary."
To add to his list of accomplishments, Michael Rabiger was awarded the International Documentary Association’s Preservation and Scholarship Award in 2003. His directing books (now in fourth editions) are translated into Spanish, German, Chinese, and Korean, with other interpretations on the way. Rabiger has given lectures and workshops in Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia. He has also published articles and essays about the British poet and novelist Thomas Hardy, and has been working for many years on a biography. He is currently writing the libretto for an opera adaptation of Hardy's striking novel THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.
Established in 2003, the CIDF is a thought-provoking 10-day film event, dedicated to the celebration and cultivation of the documentary film. The eclectic programming is designed to extend appreciation of the art of documentary film and its unique power to inspire and communicate a world of ideas and cultures. Each edition presents an array of extraordinary programs, showcasing the work of brilliant filmmakers and providing a venue for established and emerging artists of film. This year over $50,000 in unrestricted cash plus other prizes will be awarded by a jury.
Tickets may be purchased daily from noon - 6:00 pm. at the CIDF Main Box Office, c/o The Society for Arts (1112 Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60622), or charged by phone at (866) 466-ARTS and online at www.chicagodocfestival.org. Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover are accepted and all charges are subject to a nominal handling charge. For up-to-date and detailed Festival information, visit www.chicagodocfestival.org or call (773) 486-9612.
Presented by the Society for Arts, the CIDF is a non-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that depends on contributions from individuals, businesses and government to make the program possible.

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