About the Filmmaker:
Jay Rosenstein is an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Illinois, and a documentary producer, director, writer, and editor whose work has been seen nationally on PBS, the ABC World News, ESPN, the Nickelodeon Channel, and the Independent Film Channel.

His latest documentary, THE AMASONG CHORUS: SINGING OUT aired on the national PBS series Independent Lens in 2004 to an audience of more than 767,000 based on Nielsen data. The film also won a Documentary Award of Excellence from the Broadcast Education Association and a CINE Golden Eagle. His documentary work also includes ERASED, which premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in 2001 and screened at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, as well as others, and won a Special Jury Award from the Ann Arbor Film Festival and a Director's Citation Award from the Black Maria Film Festival.

His best known documentary, the groundbreaking IN WHOSE HONOR? AMERICAN INDIAN MASCOTS IN SPORTS, aired nationally on the PBS series Point of View, was nominated for a Peabody Award, and was recognized by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as one of the most outstanding programs on race in American television in 1997-98. IN WHOSE HONOR? is also being used as an educational resource in more than 400 colleges and universities nationwide and in Canada. IN WHOSE HONOR? is now available on DVD through New Day Films.

Jay is currently working on two new films. The first, THE LORD IS NOT ON TRIAL HERE TODAY, is about the 1946 landmark separation of church and state Supreme Court case, McCollum vs. Board of Education. That film is currently in post-production. The second, NEVER IGNORED: THE STORY OF AIM, THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT, is just beginning production in partnership with Native American filmmaker Jim Fortier.

Jay has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, the Independent Television Service, the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Illinois Arts Council. He can be contacted via email at jrosenst@uiuc.edu.