the Berlin International Film Festival and Hot Docs, before premiering in New York City. In 2012 he was awarded a Governors Award, introduced by Michael Moore. In 2014 it was reported that Pennebaker, in collaboration with his wife, was working on a documentary focused on the Nonhuman Rights Project and its efforts to have certain animals, such as cetaceans, elephants, and apes, be classified as legal persons. Death Pennebaker died at his home in Sag Harbor, New York on August 1, 2019. Process and style Pennebaker's films, usually shot with a hand-held camera, often eschew voice-over narration and interviews in favor of a "simple" portrayal of events typical of the direct cinema style Pennebaker helped popularize in the U.S. Of such an approach, Pennebaker told interviewer G. Roy Levin published in 1971 that "it's possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on, and let everybody decide whether it tells them about any of these things. But you don't have to label them, you don't have to have the narration to instruct you so you can be sure and understand that it's good for you to learn." In that same interview with Levin, Pennebaker goes so far as to claim that Dont Look Back is "not a documentary at all by my standards". He instead repeatedly asserts that he does not make documentaries, but "records of moments", "half soap operas", and "semimusical reality things". An accomplished engineer, Pennebaker developed one of the first fully portable, synchronized 16mm camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized modern filmmaking. Legacy His aesthetic and technical breakthroughs have also had a major influence on narrative filmmaking, influencing such realist masterworks as Barbara Loden's Wanda, which was filmed and edited by one of Pennebaker's protégés, Nicholas Proferes, and even acclaimed satires such as Tim Robbins' Bob Roberts. His style has also been spoofed by Weird Al Yankovic and the Emmy-nominated mockumentary series Documentary Now. Filmography Daybreak Express (1953) (music by Duke Ellington) Baby (1954) Opening in Moscow (1959) Breaking It Up at the Museum (1960) Anatomy of Cindy Fink (1960) Primary (1960) (National Film Registry Inductee) Jane (1962) Jingle Bells (1964) with Robert F. Kennedy You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You (1964) Lambert & Co., or "Audition at RCA" (1964) Dont Look Back (1967, filmed 1965) with Bob Dylan (National Film Registry Inductee) Something Is Happening