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Eric Gilliland’s Shortlist

Published on February 23, 2011

The Shortlist article series is your opportunity to learn about the films that inspire intellectual, artistic and activist leaders—leaders like Eric Gilliland. We asked Eric to share his favorite films and his thoughts on the power of documentary to change the world.

So what films make Eric’s Shortlist? Keep reading to find out.

Eric Gilland
playing chef at a charity event.

Who is Eric Gilliland?

Eric Gilliland is a TV writer/producer who has written for shows like The Wonder Years, That 70’s Show, and Who’s the Boss? He’s currently co-executive producing Matthew Perry‘s new show Mr. Sunshine. Spending four years on Rosanne, eventually becoming its executive producer and head writer, he snagged a Peabody Award, a Golden Globe and a WGA nomination for best writing in comedy. Last year he directed and co-wrote the one-woman show Martha Plimpton Sings? at Lincoln Center for their American Songbook series.

Eric Gilliland on the Power of Film

The challenge MediaRights posed to me was “Describe your thoughts on the power of documentary to change the world.” The amazing thing is that, as producer of God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of The Lost Boys of Sudan, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Best Documentary Award at the Deauville Film Festival, I got to see this happen first hand. Working on this movie for over a year was one of the most satisfying projects of my life. I had seen a few hours of footage that my friend, director Christopher Quinn, had assembled after five years of following these amazing young men from the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya to a new life in America. It was as moving and captivating as anything I’ve ever seen.

Over time, watching and cataloguing hours and hours of our three subjects, Jon Bul, Daniel, and Panther, I felt I got to know them very well. They were remarkably cool and collected and eloquent. They would take part in Q & A’s after screenings and you could hear a pin drop. After one screening, I watched a woman hand John Bul a check for $25,000 to support the clinic he was building in his home village. Before he could say thank you, she had already driven off. In fact, checks kept coming in from a variety of sources all week. At Sundance alone, John had increased the funding for his clinic by 25%.

John has since raised so much money that his clinic continues to grow. By May 2010, it had provided care to more than 33,000 patients, in an area where there are no medical facilities for 75 miles. I still get calls from people saying, “What can I do to help?” (The answer is, go here.) So, yes, documentaries can completely change the world, save lives, and move people to create change.

Eric Gilliland’s Shortlist

White Wilderness
The first documentaries I remember watching were the ones shown on NBC’s “Disney’s Wide World of Color,” a sort of catch-all for everything Disney. They repeatedly showed this documentary, about the odd phenomenon of lemmings committing mass suicide by thrusting themselves over cliffs, plummeting to certain death on the rocks below. It won an Academy Award® for Documentary Feature. Problem was, it was all bunk. Disney had flown a bunch of lemmings from Hudson Bay to Alberta, Canada, where they were not nudged by some behavioral trait to jump off the cliff, but were actually launched off the cliff by the filmmaker using a turntable. It proves that if you find an astounding subject matter, a documentary can definitely educate, wow, move, and thrill an audience.

Grey Gardens
Seeing how the Maysles brothers honored these two aging, reclusive, former socialites; making them fascinating, heartbreaking, and human; telling their story without a moment of mockery…it’s riveting character analysis.

Spellbound
This lovely film about a spelling bee was the feel good movie of the decade. It’s driven by amazing characters, and what better way to show what life in America is? Fierce competition, family, compassion, and really funny faces.

Man On Wire
One impish determined man wanted to walk between the World Trade Center Towers on a tightrope in 1974. Absolutely insane and impossible. And yet (spoiler alert), not only did he do it, he did tricks. It’s a story of dogged determination of a man who always asked himself “Why not?”

The Up Series
The idea is genius, the follow-through Herculean. Michael Apted found 14 seven-year-old British children from various backgrounds, interviewed them, and got to know their hopes and fears. It was called Seven Up! He’s gone back every seven years since to check up on them, editing who they were with who they’ve become. The premise is taken from the Jesuit motto “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Incredibly, 56 Up will premiere next year.

Planet Earth
This is precisely why HDTV was invented. The title may sound lofty and impossible to live up to, but it does. Five years in production, this BBC series covers pretty much every possible thing living on, well, Earth. Things you’ve never seen before. If you can, get the version with Sir David Attenborough’s narration.

Other picks:
The Fog of War
American Movie

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