American producer, director, and writer born on 6 April 1955 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, US. Along with his filmmaking partner Jeffrey Freidman, he founded the production company Telling Pictures, specializing in documentaries. He is also co-chair of the film program at California College of the Arts. He has won several awards including two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature for The Times of Harvey Milk (1985) and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989). His other notable works include The Celluloid Closet (1995), Howl (2010), and Paragraph 175 (2000).