Randall
MacLowry
Producer | Writer | Director | Editor
Randall
Filmmaker Statement
Randall MacLowry is an award-winning filmmaker who crafts documentaries and nonfiction media projects through The Film Posse, a production company he co-founded with his spouse, business partner and university colleague Tracy Heather Strain. Since 1986, MacLowry has been making documentaries primarily about topics in United States history. After serving as a production associate on two episodes of New York Center for Visual History’s Voices and Visions—the acclaimed 13-part documentary series on American poets that aired on PBS in 1988, he decided to pursue editing. Working as an assistant film editor organizing trim bins and selects reels, primarily for renowned documentary filmmaker Charles Guggenheim, led to cutting films the old-fashioned way, on flatbed Steenbecks. Editing opened the door to directing, writing and producing.
MacLowry’s feature documentary directing debut, a film about Stephen Foster, America’s first great songwriter, was acquired by GBH’s flagship PBS history series American Experience. Since then, he has worked on over a dozen films for American Experience. Other credits include films for the PBS series NOVA and Frontline, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, and Race: The Power of an Illusion. With Strain, MacLowry produced and edited the Peabody Award-winning Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart about the late playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry. He received a Writers Guild award for The Illusion of Time, his episode of the 2013 NOVA series The Fabric of the Cosmos, and the 2014 American Experience episode “Silicon Valley.” His American Experience films “The Gold Rush” and “The Mine Wars” won the Organization for American Historians’ Erik Barnouw Award. MacLowry serves as Assistant Professor of the Practice in the College of Film and Moving Image at Wesleyan University and Co-Director of the Wesleyan Documentary Project.
filmography
2021
American Oz American Experience, Producer/Director/Writer with Tracy Heather Strain, The Film Posse/GBH, Middletown, CT.
2019
The Feud, American Experience, Producer/Director/Writer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
2018
The Swamp, American Experience, Producer/Director/Co-Writer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
2017
Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, Producer/Editor, Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project, LLC. Broadcast on American Masters 2018 as Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart.
2016
The Battle of Chosin, American Experience, Producer/Director, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
The Mine Wars, American Experience, Producer/Director, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
2014
The Rise & Fall of Penn Station, American Experience, Producer/Director/Writer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
2013
Silicon Valley, American Experience, Producer/Director/Co-Writer/Editor, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
2011
Gaining Ground, Editor, Vital Pictures, Boston, MA
The Silence, Frontline, Editor, Lower 48 Films/GBH, Boston, MA
The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time, NOVA, Producer/Director/Co-Writer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
2010
Roots of Health, Segment Co-Producer/Editor, The Film Posse for Linda Harrar Productions, Boston, MA.
2009
Reel Native, Editor/Story Consultant, GBH, Boston, MA.
The Polio Crusade, American Experience, Editor, Sarah Colt Productions, Boston, MA
2008
When the Bough Breaks, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, Co-Producer/Editor, The Film Posse for Vital Pictures, Boston, MA.
2006
The Gold Rush, American Experience, Producer/Director, Yellow Jersey Films/GBH, Boston, MA.
2005
Building the Alaska Highway, American Experience, Producer/Writer/Editor, Diner Media/GBH, Boston, MA.
2004
Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, American Experience, Editor, GBH, Boston, MA.
2003
The Story We Tell, Race: The Power of an Illusion, Editor, Diner Media for California Newsreel, San Francisco, CA.
2002
A Brilliant Madness, American Experience, Producer/Co-Writer, Yellow Jersey Films/GBH, Boston, MA.
2001
Stephen Foster, American Experience, Producer/Director/Co-Writer, WITF, Harrisburg, PA.
1997
Hersheypark: Sweet Memories, Producer/Editor, WITF, Harrisburg, PA.
Head Over Heels, Director/Editor, fiction short, Pioneer Rocks Productions, Morgantown, WV.
Getting Over Arnette, Producer/Editor, fiction short, WNPB, Morgantown, WV.
Great Books: Galileo’s Dialogue, Editor, Cronkite-Ward & Co./Discovery Channel, Washington, DC.
1996
If You Lived Here You Would Be Home Now, Sound Editor, Beaufort 9 Films, Brooklyn, NY.
1995
West Virginia: A Film History, Editor, WNPB, Morgantown, WV.
1990
AFI Life Achievement Award to Sir David Lean, tribute clips, Editor/Assistant Editor, Washington, DC.
1989-1992
Guggenheim Productions, Assistant Editor, Washington, DC.
1989-1991
Kennedy Center Honors, film tributes, Editor/Assistant Editor, Washington, DC.
1988
Voices and Visions, Production Associate, New York Center for Visual History, New York, NY.