Brett Morgen

Brett Morgen was a documentary filmmaker whose award winning work helped set the standard of nonfiction movie making in the early 21st century. Over the course of his hugely successful career, he covered subjects from athletes to punk rockers to his fellow movie makers. Morgen grew up in New York City. Morgen was passionate about film from a young age; he wanted to be a documentary filmmaker by age five. He had a subscription to Variety at age nine and collected film memorabilia throughout middle school. He attended Hampshire College, where he majored in American mythology, before getting his masters in film from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His thesis, the feature-length documentary "On the Ropes" (1999), centered on a boxing coach and his three young protégés. "On the Ropes" won many festival awards and was nominated for an Academy Award. This began his career as a critically acclaimed filmmaker. His film "The Kid Stays In The Picture" (2002) about the legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans, was screened at Cannes. He also dabbled in TV documentaries, producing "Nimrod Nation" (Sundance 2005-06) about a small town basketball team, which won him a Peabody Award. In 2015, he directed the documentary "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck," a piercing inside look at the late troubled musician.