Eugene Jarecki (born October 5, 1969) is an American filmmaker and author. He is best known as a two-time winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, as well as multiple Emmy and Peabody Awards, for his films ''
Why We Fight'', ''
Reagan'', and ''
The House I Live In''.
His other films include ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'', ''Freakonomics'', ''The Opponent'', and ''Quest of the Carib Canoe''. His most recent feature, ''
The King In the British English-speaking world, The King refers to:
* Charles III (born 1948), King of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms since 2022
As a nickname
* Michael Jackson (1958–2009), American singer and pop icon, nicknamed "T ...
'', was nominated for two Emmys in 2020, including Best Documentary Feature, and a 2019 Grammy Award for Best Music Film of the Year.
Jarecki is also the author of ''The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men'', and a ''Republic in Peril'' (Simon & Schuster).
Early life and education
Jarecki was born in New Haven, Connecticut to Henry Jarecki and Gloria Jarecki, a former film critic at ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' magazine. Jarecki grew up in New York with his brothers Andrew Jarecki and Thomas A. Jarecki. They also have a half-brother Nicholas Jarecki. All four brothers are in the film industry, most notably Andrew who has also won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Emmy award for his own films and series.
After graduating from the Hackley School in 1987, Eugene attended Princeton University. There he trained as a stage director, but pivoted into film, where he experienced early success. His first short film, ''Season of the Lifterbees'', premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and won the Time Warner Grand Prize at the Aspen Film Festival.
Career
Film and television
In 2000, Jarecki directed two feature films. One was the documentary ''
Quest of the Carib Canoe'', which documents an effort by indigenous
Carib Indians on the Island of
Dominica to build an ancient ocean-going canoe and retrace their ancestors' path from South America's
Orinoco Delta
The Orinoco Delta is a vast river delta of the Orinoco River, located in eastern Venezuela.
Location
The Orinoco Delta is one of the eight natural regions of Venezuela.
It covers the whole of Delta Amacuro State and a few square kilometers of M ...
in what is now modern
Guyana to the islands of the Caribbean. His second film that year was a dramatic feature called ''
The Opponent'' released by
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian- American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquarter ...
.
In 2002, his first theatrical documentary feature ''
The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' was released. Based on the book
The Trial of Henry Kissinger
''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'' is a 2001 book by Christopher Hitchens examining the alleged war crimes of Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor and later United States Secretary of State for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. ...
by
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
, this film is the first of Jarecki's sweeping indictments of the perils of power. ''Trials'' was selected to launch both the
Sundance Channel's DOCday venture as well as the
BBC's digital channel,
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002 . Ultimately, the film has been broadcast in over thirty countries.
Winner of the 2002 Amnesty International Award, the film was nominated for an
Independent Spirit Award
The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass ...
and In 2002,
In 2005, Jarecki distinguished himself as a filmmaker unafraid of serious, penetrating investigations. His film ''
Why We Fight'' about the role of America's
military-industrial complex in leading the nation into the tragic quagmire of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
, won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and a Peabody Award. He also received a nomination for
Best Documentary Screenplay from the
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO
* The Writers G ...
for the film.
Alongside directors
Alex Gibney
Philip Alexander Gibney (; born October 23, 1953) is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, ''Esquire'' magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time".
Gibney's works as director include '' ...
,
Morgan Spurlock
Morgan Valentine Spurlock (born November 7, 1970) is an American documentary filmmaker, humorist, television producer, screenwriter and playwright.
Spurlock's films include '' Super Size Me'' (2004), ''Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?'' (20 ...
, and
Rachel Grady, Jarecki directed a segment of the 2010 feature ''
Freakonomics
''Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything'' is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and ''New York Times'' journalist Stephen J. Dubner. Published on April 12, 2005, by Wil ...
'' based on the 2005 book ''
Freakonomics
''Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything'' is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and ''New York Times'' journalist Stephen J. Dubner. Published on April 12, 2005, by Wil ...
: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything'' by
Steven D. Levitt
Steven David Levitt (born May 29, 1967) is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book ''Freakonomics'' and its sequels (along with Stephen J. Dubner). Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal for his work in the ...
and
Stephen J. Dubner. The film premiered at the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was ...
that year.
In 2011, Jarecki returned to the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...
with his Emmy Award-winning film ''
Reagan'', before its national television release on
HBO on what would have been the
40th President's 100th birthday. The next year, ''
The House I Live In'', his film about America's
War on Drugs
The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, ...
, won Jarecki a second Grand Jury Prize at Sundance as well as a second Peabody Award. Achieving a level of mainstream recognition, the film's producers included
Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the '' Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films inclu ...
,
John Legend
John Roger Stephens (born December 28, 1978), known professionally as John Legend, is an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and record producer. He began his musical career by working behind the scenes, playing piano on Lauryn Hill's " Eve ...
,
Brad Pitt
William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...
, and
Russell Simmons
Russell Wendell Simmons (born October 4, 1957) is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. Simmons ...
. In order to create a genuine impact, the film was exhibited in over 130 U.S. prisons, churches, and statehouses, as well as on Capitol Hill. Along with th
music video of the same name featuring John Legend, and the viral shor
''Just Say No...to the War on Drugs'' (both directed by Jarecki), the film is credited with changing the national conversation on U.S. drug policy.
In 2014, Jarecki took part in the first
Ted Talk
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...
in the history of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
at Havana's Teatro Nacional. Events that occurred in the days leading up to the talk became the subject of Jarecki's 2016 short film,
The Cyclist (El Ciclista)' which he directed for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
''/
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
.
In 2015, Jarecki served as executive producer on the documentary feature film ''
(T)ERROR'', directed by Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliff, which won Jarecki a Sundance Special Jury Prize and his second Emmy Award.
That same year, he also executive produced Laura Israel's feature documentary ''
Don't Blink – Robert Frank'' about the late legendary photographer's work and career.
His most recent film, ''
The King In the British English-speaking world, The King refers to:
* Charles III (born 1948), King of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms since 2022
As a nickname
* Michael Jackson (1958–2009), American singer and pop icon, nicknamed "T ...
'', produced by
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh (; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh is an acclaimed and prolific filmmaker.
Soderbergh's direct ...
,
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamar ...
, and
Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife. Although she is often classified as a country art ...
, premiered at Cannes and Sundance. Nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Music Film, The King is a musical road trip in
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
's 1963 Rolls-Royce that features
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. In his early career, Baldwin played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's '' Beetlejuice'' (1988), Mike Nich ...
,
Chuck D
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour (born August 1, 1960), known professionally as Chuck D, is an American rapper, best known as the leader and frontman of the hip hop group Public Enemy, which he co-founded in 1985 with Flavor Flav. Chuck D helped crea ...
,
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, includin ...
,
Mike Myers
Michael John Myers Order of Canada, OC (born May 25, 1963) is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. His accolades include seven MTV Movie & TV Awards, MTV Awards, a Primetime Emmy Awards, Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Acto ...
,
Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife. Although she is often classified as a country art ...
,
Van Jones
Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones (born September 20, 1968) is an American news and political commentator, author, and lawyer. He is the co-founder of several non-profit organizations, a three-time ''New York Times'' bestselling author, a CNN host and ...
, and
Ethan Hawke
Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970) is an American actor and film director. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award. Hawke has directed three feature films, three off-Broadway plays, and a doc ...
, among others, tracing the rise and fall of Elvis as a metaphor for the country he left behind. Alongside the film, Jarecki created a series of music videos for artists such as
Lana Del Rey
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (born June 21, 1985), known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter. Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, Glamour (presentation), glamour, and melan ...
,
M. Ward,
The Handsome Family
The Handsome Family is an American music duo consisting of husband and wife Brett and Rennie Sparks formed in Chicago, Illinois, and as of 2001 based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are perhaps best known for their song " Far from Any Road" from ...
,
Immortal Technique
Felipe Andres Coronel (born February 19, 1978), better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper. Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics, from a radical left-wing perspective.
Immortal Techn ...
, and the
Stax Music Academy All-Stars.
In 2018, Jarecki's first public contemporary art exhibit, entitled Promised Land, was featured at Miami
Art Basel
Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...
as part of
"This is Not America"' at the Faena Hotel, Miami Beach. A multiscreen video presentation, Promised Land was inspired by Jarecki's 2018 film, ''
The King In the British English-speaking world, The King refers to:
* Charles III (born 1948), King of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms since 2022
As a nickname
* Michael Jackson (1958–2009), American singer and pop icon, nicknamed "T ...
''.
In 2019, it was announced that Jarecki is returning to dramatic filmmaking with a yet-untitled action film about a Saharan,
Tuareg
The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Alg ...
nomad, who seeks revenge for a crime committed against his tribal customs. Jarecki wrote the screenplay with his son Jonas Jarecki, based on a best-selling novel.
Addison O'Dea is producing.
Public policy
As a
public intellectual
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
on U.S. domestic and international policy, Jarecki has appeared on a variety of national television programs including ''
The Daily Show
''The Daily Show'' is an American late-night talk and satirical news television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central with release shortly after on Paramount+. ''The Daily Show'' draws its comedy and satire form fr ...
'', ''
The Colbert Report
''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focu ...
'', ''
Real Time with Bill Maher
''Real Time with Bill Maher'' is an American television talk show that airs weekly on HBO, hosted by comedian and political satirist Bill Maher. Much like his previous series ''Politically Incorrect'' on Comedy Central and later on ABC, ''Real ...
'', ''
Fox & Friends
''Fox & Friends'' is an American daily morning news and talk program that airs on Fox News. It premiered on February 1, 1998, and is currently hosted by Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade on weekdays. Will Cain, Rachel Campos ...
'', and ''
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete Rose Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American former television journalist and talk show host. From 1991 to 2017, he was the host and executive producer of the talk show '' Charlie Rose'' on PBS and Bloomberg LP.
Rose also co- ...
''. In 2010, he created the short film ''
Move Your Money
Bank Transfer Day was a consumer activism initiative calling for a voluntary switch from commercial banks to not-for-profit credit unions by November 5, 2011. As of October 15, 2011, a Facebook page devoted to the effort had drawn more than 54,900 ...
'', encouraging Americans to move their banking from "too big to fail" banks into smaller community banks and credit unions. It became a viral sensation leading to an estimated 4 million Americans moving their money out of major banks.

Jarecki is also the Founder and Executive director of
The Eisenhower Project
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...
, an academic public policy group, dedicated, in the spirit of
Dwight D. Eisenhower, to studying the forces that shape American foreign policy. He has been a visiting fellow at
Brown University's
Watson Institute for International Studies
The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs is an interdisciplinary research center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Its mission is to promote a just and peaceful world through research, teaching, and public engagemen ...
and is the author of ''The American Way of War'' (2008), published by Simon & Schuster/Free Press.
Jarecki has also participated as a speaker at several international conferences including Ted, Nantucket Project, and
will.i.am's "TRANS4M" gathering for the i.am.angel Foundation.
At the 2014 Nantucket Project, Jarecki conducted a public interview with
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
editor-in-chief
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army i ...
as a
hologram
Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other Holography#Applications, applic ...
, beamed in to Nantucket from his place of asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Jarecki wrote in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' before the event, "it crosses my mind I may be abetting a crime or violating international extradition laws. But I reassure myself that, in this regard, the worldwide web remains a kind of wild wild west, and the virtual escape of a person is not (yet?) a crime."

As a sequel to this interview, Jarecki publicly interviewed former U.S. Army soldier
Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage ...
at the 2017 Nantucket Project, after her 35-year prison sentence was commuted by
President Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. In ''The Guardian'', Jarecki wrote, "Manning sees connections in the duty of the soldier who uncovers high crimes, to the death of secrecy in the digital age, to the role of the individual in a society where privacy is as besieged as sexual orientation."
In April 2020 Jarecki created the
Trump Death Clock
Eugene Jarecki (born October 5, 1969) is an American filmmaker and author. He is best known as a two-time winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, as well as multiple Emmy and Peabody Awards, for his films '' Why We Fight'', ''Reagan'', and '' T ...
, a 56-foot billboard in
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
, that shows a daily estimate of the total portion of U.S
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...
deaths resulting from President Trump and his administration's delayed response to the
pandemic
A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of i ...
. The websit
www.TrumpDeathClock.comprovides an up-to-the minute estimate. Visitors can learn more about the human cost of the administration's inaction between March 9 and 16, 2020, whic
as a crucial period in the virus' exponential spread. The site reached over 200,000 visits in just its first few days of operation, and Jarecki published
Washington Post editorialexplaining the math epidemiology behind the Clock's design.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
See also
Interviews
*''
The Brooklyn Rail
''The Brooklyn Rail'' is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The ''Rail'' is based out of Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, criti ...
''
"The Nature of the System/It's the System Not the Man: Eugene Jarecki in conversation with Williams Cole"''New York Magazine'': "Childhood in New York", featuring Jareckia BBC ''Storyville'' interviewa BBC World interviewon ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart''on ''The Charlie Rose Show''on ''The Colbert Report''
Full films
*
Why We Fight' – Google Video, 1 hr 39 min 1 sec
*
The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' – Google Video, 1 hr 19 min 41 sec
*
Move Your Money' short film on YouTube
Bibliography
*''The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril'' (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarecki, Eugene
Living people
American documentary filmmakers
Film directors from New York City
American people of German-Jewish descent
Princeton University alumni
New York University alumni
Hackley School alumni
People from New Haven, Connecticut
Film directors from Connecticut
1969 births