John Douglas

Directing • 1938-07-13 • Lake Forest, Illinois, USA

John Douglas was an American filmmaker, photographer visual artist, and activist born on July 13, 1938 in Lake Forest, Illinois. He attended Harvard University for about year, then Studied art at Boston University while working as a painter. In 1961, he was drafted into the United States Army. He subsequentaly bought a farm in Putney, Vermont. In 1967, he met Robert Kramer and joined the activist filmmaking collective Newsreel. That same year, he and Tom Griffinco-directed Strike City, a documentary following plantation workers striking for a livable wage in Mississippi. In 1969, he traveled to Hanoi, North Vietnam, and filmed The People's War. He later co-directed Milestones with Robert Kramer. In 1975, Milestones won the Critics’ Choice at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1981, he moved to Charlotte, Vermont. In 1983, he co-directed Grenada: The Future Coming Towards Us, which documented the new Grenadian democracy under Maurice Bishop. He died on January 25, 2022.