“Superbly done.”

– ARTNews

Exposing Muybridge

by Marc Shaffer • 2021 • 88’ • USA

 Credits

Director/Producer/Writer:
Marc Shaffer

Producer/Editor:
Elisabeth Haviland James

Producer:
Serginho Roosblad

Few figures have played such a seminal role in our moving picture history as the revolutionary photographer Eadweard Muybridge. His unprecedented images of running horses instantly transformed the camera into a machine of unmatched powers of perception and persuasion, and set the course for the birth of cinema. Muybridge was a complicated man whose personal story was imbued with ambition, success, loss, and even cold-blooded murder. He directly inspired numerous artists from Francis Bacon to David Hockney to Gary Oldman, whose passionate contribution to this documentary is exceptional.

Awards & Festivals

Best Documentary Screenplay [winner]
— Writers Guild Awards

Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film [finalist]
– Library of Congress

News & Documentary [Nominated]
— Emmy Awards 2023

DOC NYC 2021
Sedona International Film Festival 2022
Boulder International Film Festival 2022
Sonoma International Film Festival 2022
Milwaukee Film Festival 2022
DocLands Documentary Film Festival 2022
Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival 2022
Mendocino Film Festival 2022
Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival 2022
Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022
New Zealand International Film Festival 2022
Jerusalem Film Festival 2022
Atlàntida Mallorca Film Festival 2022
Lemesos Int'l Documentary Festival 2022
Sydney Underground Film Fest 2022
Architectuur Film Festival 2022
Rio de Janerio International Film Festival 2022
Film Fest Ghent 2022
Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2023

Filmmaker’s Biography

Marc Shaffer is a documentary filmmaker, investigative reporter, and founder of the non-profit production company Inside Out Media in Oakland, California. Shaffer has directed and produced many acclaimed documentaries for television, including GANG WAR USA, MARIJUANA GOLD RUSH, and INTERROGATING SADDAM (National Geographic); BIGGER THAN ENRON and ROLLOVER (PBS Frontline); REMAKING AMERICAN MEDICINE and AMERICAN JERUSALEM: JEWS AND THE MAKING OF SAN FRANCISCO (PBS); and BROKEN DREAMS: THE BOEING 787, one of the most watched documentaries ever run on Al Jazeera English. His films have been nominated for three national Emmy Awards. 

Elisabeth Haviland James produced and edited the Emmy-nominated feature documentary ALTHEA (PBS, American Masters) and the Peabody and Emmy-winning THE LOVING STORY (HBO). Her acclaimed documentary OVERLAND, which she co-directed and edited, premiered at the 2020 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and has screened widely at film festivals in the United States and around the world.    

Serginho Roosblad is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. He holds a Masters of Journalism degree from UC Berkeley, where he was the Marlon T. Riggs fellow in documentary filmmaking and a Dean’s Merit Fellow. Raised in Amsterdam, with roots in the Caribbean, Roosblad lives in San Francisco where he is a video producer for the Associated Press.