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Emile de Antonio (1919 – December 16, 1989) was a director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political or social events circa 1960s–1980s. He has been referred to by scholars and critics alike, and arguably remains, “…the most important political filmmaker in the United States during the Cold War.” He was born in 1919 in in the coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. His father, Emilio de Antonio, an Italian immigrant, fostered the lifelong interests of Antonio by passing on his own love for philosophy, classical literature, history and the arts. Although... MORE

Emile de Antonio (1919 – December 16, 1989) was a director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political or social events circa 1960s–1980s. He has been referred to by scholars and critics alike, and arguably remains, “…the most important political filmmaker in the United States during the Cold War.” He was born in 1919 in in the coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. His father, Emilio de Antonio, an Italian immigrant, fostered the lifelong interests of Antonio by passing on his own love for philosophy, classical literature, history and the arts. Although his intelligence allowed him the privilege of attended Harvard University alongside then future-president John F. Kennedy, he was also familiar with the working class experience, making his living at various points in his life as a peddler, a book editor, and the captain of a river barge (among other duties). He would later go on to make a film about Kennedy's assassination called Rush to Judgment (1966), an early rebuttal of the Warren Report. After serving in the military during World War II as a bomber pilot, de Antonio returned to the United States where he frequented the art crowd, often associating LESS