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Director's Bio
Robert Gardner, Producer/Director
Over a career that spans 30 years, documentary film
producer, director, and writer Robert Gardner has been
nominated for an Academy Award and won three National Emmy
Awards, four regional Emmys, and a duPont Columbia award for
excellence in broadcast journalism from Columbia University.
He has also earned honors from the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, the Science Journalism Award for
Television, and a variety of special awards.
His production company, Gardner Films, has produced for
commercial and public television in the United States and
internationally for 17 years. He is a member of the
Director’s Guild and the Writer’s Guild of America, and has
lectured on non-fiction television at Johns Hopkins
University, Goucher College, The American Film Institute,
The American University, and Wesleyan University.
Gardner's best work explores the way ordinary people react
to extraordinary events -- the triumph of personal courage
in the face of war or poverty, the emergence of human values
in times of crisis and change. His historical documentaries
feature extensive period re-enactments and complex location
production, utilizing robotic jib work, Steadicam, and
extreme slow-motion. High production values are a hallmark.
Gardner’s most recently broadcast films include The
Barbarians, a four-hour world premiere and marquee special
series for The History Channel about the Barbarian invasions
of Europe. Supported by an extensive promotional effort, the
series produced the second highest ratings in the history of
The History Channel. Marketing elements included four-page
advertising supplement in The New York Times, full-page ads
in Time Magazine, The Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today,
ESPN magazine, live radio promotions in 16 markets and
three-dimensional billboards in Times Square and Sunset
Blvd, Los Angeles.
 Gardner
has also recently aired a number of films on PBS, including
a one-hour documentary biography of Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate Elie Wiesel, narrated by Academy Award-winner
William Hurt; and Arab and Jew: Return to the Promised Land,
a one-hour PBS documentary about the ongoing conflict
between the Israelis and the Palestinians, with Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist, David K. Shipler. In 2002, PBS
also aired Gardner’s three-hour documentary film series
called Islam: Empire of Faith. The series was shot on film
in Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Spain, Turkey, and Iran.
Other credits include two one-hour episodes of the Discovery
Channel’s top-rated forensic science series, The New
Detectives and two one-hour episodes of The FBI Files, as
well as an episode of the PBS premier science series NOVA,
produced on location in Antarctica.
Other work includes: two one-hour episodes of Time Life
Television’s documentary series, Lost Civilizations,
produced for NBC’s entertainment division and broadcast on
NBC in June 1995. The two episodes, Egypt: Quest for
Immortality and Mesopotamia: Return to Eden, were shot on
location in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, and Bahrain. The series won
a Primetime Emmy in 1996, represented by Egypt: Quest for
Immortality.
Gardner Films has also worked in Bolivia, Ethiopia, Egypt,
Israel and France on a variety of assignments for National
Geographic Television. Back to
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