Jeffrey Tuchman

Jeffrey Tuchman is an award-winning documentary producer, director and writer who, for the past fifteen years, has dedicated himself to the creation of innovative documentary film and television. In that time, Mr Tuchman has built a formidable body of long-form documentary work, with over 30 films to his credit which have aired on A&E, PBS, The History Channel, ABC, Discovery/TLC, Court TV, CBS, MSNBC and HBO among others.

Mr. Tuchman is known as a pioneer in the use of new forms, models, and styles of documentary filmmaking. He was senior producer of the 1998 ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART, an award-winning feature-length documentary which followed notorious polygamist Alex Joseph, his eight wives and 21 children as they all attempted to cope with his impending death from cancer. ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART was shot over a two month period by three, one-person crews using small digital video cameras.

Over the past few years, Mr. Tuchman has been senior producer on a more than a dozen investigative documentaries, all shot by lone video-journalists, looking at such varied subjects as the HMO crisis, the rise in heroin addiction among young women, and the erosion of our privacy caused by the proliferation of video-surveillance cameras.

In 1992, Mr. Tuchman directed THE MAN FROM HOPE, the acclaimed Clinton biography shown at the 1992 Democratic Convention, which was widely hailed as a historical piece of political filmmaking (and which began his partnership with television producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason).

Mr. Tuchman co-produced SELF PORTRAITS, an award-winning one-hour special for Showtime, and one of the first "video-diary" programs shot entirely by non-professionals on small-format video.

He also directed one of the first full-length documentaries to be shot entirely in high-definition television(HDTV). WHITE HOUSE is a one-hour film in which Tuchman followed Presidential photographer Robert McNeely as he documented the Clinton presidency. Produced for NHK/Japan, WHITE HOUSE was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 1995 International Electronic Cinema Festival in Tokyo and had its U.S. premiere at the Kennedy Center.

In 1996 Mr. Tuchman wrote and produced the pilot for SCIENCE TIMES, a series produced with the New York Times for Discovery/TLC, which takes a verité look inside the scientific process, and was one of the first broadcast documentary series shot entirely on small-format digital video (DV).

Earlier in his career, Mr. Tuchman distinguished himself as a producer and writer of educational issue documentaries on such diverse topics as the AIDS crisis, U.S./Soviet relations, the public schools, the environment, and penal reform.

Also in that period, he co-produced the pilot for CHOICES, a PBS series on changing social values in America (for WGBH/Boston). He served as a program consultant on two national PBS specials -- CONDITION CRITICAL: THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE FORUM, and THE ISSUE IS RACE, (also for WGBH). And he served as a consultant on the development of ECU, a PBS series from the producers of the flagship series POV.

In addition to his documentary work, Mr. Tuchman has made a number of forays into the world of political and issue/advocacy advertising. Among his efforts: directing the ads for Michael Dukakis’ Presidential bid, and for Bill Clinton’s ’92 campaign (for which he won a Pollie Award), and more recently, Hillary Clinton’s senate campaign. Campaigns and Elections Magazine named his "Ed Koch" spot for Hillary, "the best political ad of the 2000 election season". He has also directed public service campaigns for The Rainforest Alliance, UNICEF, and PBS.

Currently, Mr. Tuchman (through his new company, Documania Films) is working on several projects, including a multi-part series on the history of medicine for the History Channel (in production); BIG IDEAS, a four-part science series for WNET; a two-hour biography of singer/song-writer James Taylor (in development), and a feature length film on politics and popular culture (also in development). As well, he continues work on TESTIMONY, a film about his father’s return to Germany to testify in a Nazi war-crimes trial against the man who murdered his mother.

Finally, Mr. Tuchman holds a faculty appointment at the Columbia University graduate school of Journalism where he teaches documentary filmmaking.