David Sutherland, born in Boston and trained at the University of California Film School, has won over 100 international awards and citations for his films. He is best known for his intimate documentary portraits of unconventional subjects.
Sutherland wrote, directed, produced and edited the groundbreaking series The Farmer's Wife, which aired on PBS over three nights in 1998 and drew over 17 million viewers. The six-and-a-half hour "Frontline" series, about a Nebraska farming family in crisis, was hailed by The Chicago Tribune as "one of the extraordinary television events of the decade." Sutherland's other PBS credits include George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn't Be King, for "The American Experience"; Paul Cadmus: Enfant Terrible at 80, a portrait of the gay social satirist and painter; Feast of the Gods for the National Gallery of Art about the mystery surrounding a painting by Titian and Bellini; Halftime: Five Yale Men at Midlife, about five men from the class of 1963; Out of Sight, a portrait of a blind cowgirl; and High Energy, about physicist Melissa Franklin which for the series "Discovering Women."
Sutherland's next project for PBS is the six-hour film Country Boys, a portrait of two teenage boys coming of age in eastern Kentucky's Appalachian hills, which airs on the "Frontline" series in January 2006.