Rob Epstein has been crafting groundbreaking, thought-provoking, and socially relevant content for over five decades. His work as a director, producer, writer, and editor has been honored with two Academy Awards, four Emmy and two Peabody Awards, and a Grammy.
Since 1987, Rob and his filmmaking partner Jeffrey Friedman have worked under their Telling Pictures banner, traversing the worlds of non-fiction and scripted narrative.
At age 19, Rob took a bus from New York City to San Francisco where he found his way to filmmaking. While taking a filmmaking class at San Francisco State University, he became a production assistant on an LGTBQ documentary then in early development. The film became the landmark documentary Word Is Out, co-directed by Rob and the other members of the Mariposa Film Group. Released in theaters throughout the United States in 1978, Word Is Out then aired nationally on prime-time public television — a first for an LQBTQ-themed documentary, crafted by openly queer filmmakers. Winner of the the DuPont-Columbia Award for Journalism, Word Is Out was recently restored and re-released by Milestone.
Rob’s next project was the Oscar, Emmy, and Peabody-winning feature documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, which he conceived, directed, co-produced and co-edited. The film touched audiences immediately, becoming an international festival sensation starting at the Telluride Film Festival and the Berlinale, and went on to win the Academy Award® for Best Feature Documentary as well as the New York Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film of 1985. Making history, the documentary was the first LGBTQ-themed film to receive an Academy Award, and Epstein was the first openly gay director to receive an Oscar. In 2013, the Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry, and the film is now part of the Criterion Collection. . The Times of Harvey Milk was recently named one of “25 most influential documentaries of all time” by the Cinema Eye honors and in 2017 received the Legacy Award.
Rob won his second Oscar and Peabody Awards for the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, made with Jeffrey Friedman. Rob's other films with Jeffrey include the box office hit The Celluloid Closet (Emmy Award for directing; Peabody), the HBO documentary Paragraph 175 (Sundance Film Festival Jury Award for Directing), Where Are We? (Our Trip Through America) (Sundance Film Festival), And the Oscar Goes To (Turner Classic Movies); State of Pride (YouTube Originals); Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Tribeca Film Festival; Grammy Award for Best Music Film); Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music (Tribeca Film Festival; HBO MAX); and Música! (Telluride Film Festival). Rob and Jeffrey’s Netflix documentary short End Game was nominated for an Academy Award.
In making the transition from documentary to scripted narrative, Rob participated in the American Film Institute Directing Internship Program on director Martha Coolidge’s movie Rambling Rose, starring Laura Dern.
Rob and Jeffrey wrote and directed the non-fiction narrative feature HOWL, starring James Franco and Jon Hamm. HOWL was developed at the Sundance Institute Writer's Lab, and was released theatrically by Oscilloscope Laboratories. It was an opening night selection at Sundance and received the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review.
Their next dramatic venture was directing Lovelace, starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Hank Azaria, Bobby Cannavale, Chris Noth, Juno Temple, and James Franco. Lovelace premiered at the Sundance and Berlin International Film Festivals.
Rob has been recognized with the Pioneer Award from the International Documentary Association (IDA) for distinguished lifetime achievement, and Cinema Eye Legacy Award. He has also received career achievement awards from Frameline, and, with Jeffrey, career achievement awards from Outfest and the Provincetown International Film Festival. Rob and Jeffrey received the George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award from the San Francisco Film Society in recognition of their distinguished service to cinema.
Career retrospectives honoring Rob and Jeffrey’s work have been presented at Film and Lincoln Center, the Taipei International Film Festival in Taiwan, the Cinémathèque Québécoise in Montreal, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, and the Pink Apple Film Festival in Zurich. Among the artist residencies Epstein has been invited to are the Bogliasco residency and the Bellagio Center, both in Italy.
In addition to his filmmaking career, for twenty years Rob was a full professor at California College of the Arts, where he co-founded the MFA Film Program, served as the co-chair of the Film program, and is currently professor emeritus. Rob has been a visiting professor at the Graduate Film Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has served on the Sundance Institute's Board of Trustees; the BAMPFA Board of Trustees; the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Board of Governors for three terms. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences', and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.