Great Invisible

Crew members, families, fishermen, and others still haunted by the Deepwater Horizon explosion provide first-hand accounts of their experience.

Great invisible 01
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
April 20, 2015
Length
90 minutes
Funding Initiative
Series and Special Projects
  • Nominated laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2015 Primetime Emmy Awards-Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2014 South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW)-Grand Jury Award
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2014 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival-Nicholas School Environmental Award
    • Brown margaret filmmaker bio
    Producer/Director

    Margaret Brown

    Margaret Brown is the producer and director of the acclaimed documentary, Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt, which was released in the United States by Palm Pictures and received worldwide theatrical distribution in 2005. Be Here to Love Me premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, was the opening night film at North America’s premier… Show more documentary film festival, Full Frame and the closing night film at the Nashville Film Festival. Brown directed the music video Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe for Okkervil River and she produced Catpower’s Living Proof video, directed by Harmony Korine. She also produced Six Miles of Eight Feet, which won a Student Academy Award in 2000. Brown was the cinematographer for Ice Fishing, which received a special jury prize from Sundance in 2000; she received the Néstor Almendros Award for cinematography from the NYU graduate film program. The short film she directed while at NYU, 99 Threadwaxing, starred Justin Kirk and Heather Burns and was screened at film festivals across the country. She produced the narrative feature film Mi Amigo, released in 2006 by ThinkFilm and starring Josh Holloway of Lost. Brown earned her BA from Brown University in creative writing and her MFA in film from New York University. Show less

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    Orans jason filmmaker bio
    Producer

    Jason Orans

    Gigantic Pictures is the New York-based independent production company run by Brian Devine, Jason Orans, and Jennifer Small. In addition to Cosmopolitan, Gigantic Pictures produced The Suitor for PBS, a narrative film based on a story by the Dominican American author Julia Alvarez. Additional productions include an adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s The First Seven Years… Show more starring Israel Horovitz and Carol Kane, which was broadcast nationally on PBS; The Third Date, starring Sandra Bernhard, Xander Berkeley, and Sarah Clark, which premiered at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival and played the 2003 London Film Festival; Drena De Niro’s documentary Girls and Dolls, which premiered on WNET; and Israel Horovitz’s autobiographical documentary about 9/11, Three Weeks After Paradise, which premiered on Bravo. Gigantic is currently in post-production on Satellite, a feature film by the writer/director Jeff Winner (You Are Here). Show less

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    Cosmopolitan
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    Co-Producer

    Pamela Ryan

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    The Film

    On April 20, 2010, communities throughout the Gulf Coast of the United States were devastated by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, a state-of-the-art, offshore oil rig operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. The blast killed 11 of 126 rig crewmembers and injured many more, setting off a fireball that was seen 35 miles away. After burning for two days, the Deepwater Horizon sank, causing the largest offshore oil spill in American history. The spill flowed unabated for almost three months, dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean, shutting down the local fishing industry, polluting the fragile ecosystem, and raising serious questions about the safety of continued deep-water offshore drilling.

    Filmmaker Margaret Brown traveled to small towns and major cities across Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas to explore the fallout of the environmental disaster. Years later, Gulf state residents still haunted by the Deepwater Horizon explosion provide first-hand accounts of their ongoing experience, long after the story has faded from the front page.

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