Inheritance

PBS Premiere: Dec. 10, 2008Check the broadcast schedule »

Filmmaker Bio

James MollEmmy- and Oscar-winning filmmaker James Moll has worked as a director and producer of documentary films and series. He is currently preparing to direct his first dramatic feature, Emmett Till, about the infamous Mississippi lynching that sparked the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. Other upcoming projects include Epilogue of the Pacific, an HBO documentary accompanying the sequel to the mini-series Band of Brothers; and Running the Sahara, a feature documentary executive produced and narrated by Matt Damon, about three athletes in the first-ever run across the Sahara.

Moll received an Academy Award in 1999 for directing and editing The Last Days, a feature documentary chronicling the lives of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors. Other credits include Price for Peace, hosted by Tom Brokaw, for NBC; A Remarkable Promise, the John Kerry bio-film that introduced the presidential candidate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention; and Voices From the List, a documentary about Oskar Schindler for the Schindler's List DVD. Moll received a Christopher Award for producing Broken Silence, a series of five foreign-language documentaries. He also produced and directed The Four Chaplains for the Hallmark Channel and directed Burma Bridge Busters and Massacre at Mystic for the History Channel.

Survivors of the Holocaust, a two-hour documentary produced by Moll for TBS and CNN International, won two Primetime Emmy Awards in 1997 and a Peabody Award. Moll received the Edward R. Murrow Award for producing "The Lost Children of Berlin" for A&E. In 2001, Moll served as an editor and supervising producer on The Unfinished Journey, directed by Steven Spielberg as a millennium special for the White House New Year's telecast.

In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Moll established and has operated the Shoah Foundation with Steven Spielberg. The Foundation has videotaped more than 50,000 testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

Born in Allentown, Penn., Moll was raised in Los Angeles and earned a degree from USC Film School. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Television Academy and the Motion Picture Academy, and serves on the Executive Committee of the Documentary Branch of the Motion Picture Academy.