"Obit" Screening & Director Talkback

Every morning, a small staff of obituary writers at The New York Times deposits the details of three or four extraordinary lives into the cultural memory – each life’s story spun amid the daily beat of war, politics, and football scores. It’s amazing what goes on in the obits.

There are only a handful of editorial obituary writers in the world, and none are better than at The Times, where obits have become some of the best writing in journalism. Documentary storytelling in print. First drafts of contemporary history. Mirrors of life’s great variety, humor and pathos. Neatly framed vignettes of worlds that will vanish along with their notable stars.

OBIT is the first documentary to look into the world of editorial obituaries, via the legendary obit desk at The Times. The film invites some of the most essential questions we ask ourselves about life, memory and the inevitable passage of time. The writers tell stories of lives lived in extraordinary ways, often below the radar. With this comes uncommon insights – insights only the rare obituary writer could have – into the passage of generations, the astonishing cycle of life, the ebb and flow of time, and culture as it appears to accelerate and vanish at the same time.

Longtime obituary editor of The New York Times William McDonald, and past and present staff writers on the desk are featured: including Bruce Weber, Margalit Fox, William Grimes, Douglas Martin and Paul Vitello.  The Times' century-old archive (appropriately called the morgue), along with its last remaining full-time archivist Jeff Roth, is also featured.

VANESSA GOULD BIO

Vanessa Gould is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and editor based in Tribeca. She directed OBIT, about the New York Times obituaries and their writer-reporters, which world-premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. It was released theatrically nationwide by Kino Lorber, followed by exclusive streaming on Amazon Prime. OBIT was named “one of the best films of the year” by Entertainment Weekly, and received accolades from NPR, BBC, TIME Magazine, Vogue, the New York Times, LA Times, The Economist, and others. Gould's previous film BETWEEN THE FOLDS premiered on PBS’s Independent Lens and received a Peabody Award. Between the Folds has been translated into ten languages and broadcast in dozens of countries around the world. It screened at more than fifty international film festivals and was recognized with numerous audience and jury awards. For television, she produced and shot for Showtime's Emmy®-winning THE YEARS PROJECT, a documentary series about climate change executive produced by James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. She was a featured presenter at the EG conference in Monterey, California, and has served on the jury for the News & Documentary Emmy® Awards, as well as on numerous festival juries.

Thank you to our generous donor Kathleen Kmet Becker for making this July Docuseries possible.