Meet James Moll

James Moll Allentown Productions Los Angeles, California USA

Moll is currently directing and producing the feature documentary, Running the Sahara, with executive producer Matt Damon, about three athletes challenging themselves to the first-ever run across the entire Sahara Desert.  Moll is also preparing to direct his first non-documentary dramatic feature,Emmett Till,about the historic Mississippi lynching that fortified the civil rights movement of the 1950’s.  The film, which was developed with Mamie Till-Mobley (Emmett Till’s mother) will be produced by Robert Teitel and George Tillman, Jr. (“Soul Food” “Barbershop”). 

Other upcoming projects include Epilogue of the Pacificfor executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, an HBO documentary to accompany the upcoming sequel to the mini-series “Band of Brothers.”  Moll is also directing the feature documentary,Cradle to Cradle, based upon the book of the same name by architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart.  Recently Moll completed Inheritance, a feature documentary about the psychological legacy bequeathed by a prominent Nazi leader upon his daughter. 

Moll received an Academy Award® in 1999 for directing and editing The Last Days, a 90-minute feature documentary, filmed in five countries, chronicling the lives of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors. 

For NBC, Moll directed and produced the primetime feature-length documentary Price for Peace, hosted by Tom Brokaw.  The late author Stephen Ambrose served as executive producer with Spielberg.  The film focuses on America’s involvement in the Pacific during WWII, and was released on DVD by DreamWorks as part of the “Saving Private Ryan” box set, “The World War II Collection.”

For the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Moll produced and directed A Remarkable Promise, the John Kerry bio-film that introduced the presidential candidate.  The previous year, Moll produced Voices from the List, a documentary about Oskar Schindler for the “Schindler’s List” DVD.

Moll was the producer of Broken Silence, a series of five foreign-language documentaries.  The five critically acclaimed films premiered on primetime television in Russia, Poland, Argentina, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and in the U.S. on Cinemax.  Moll received a Christopher Award for this series.

Moll produced and directed The Four Chaplains, a WWII documentary for The Hallmark Channel about the heroic efforts of four Army chaplains aboard an ill-fated troop ship.  For The History Channel, Moll directed Burma Bridge Busters, about a WWII Air Corps bomb squadron, as well as Massacre at Mystic about a turning point between Native Americans and early European settlers.

Survivors of the Holocaust, a two-hour documentary produced by Moll for TBS and CNN International, was nominated for three Primetime Emmy®Awards in 1997 (winning two of them), and also received the Peabody Award.  Moll received the Edward R. Murrow Award for producing The Lost Children of Berlin for A&E  For VH1’s Fan Club series, Moll made a film about obsessive fans of singer Ricky Martin.  Other television credits include directing two of the John Wells-produced One-Minute Movies about robots, as well as directing/producing various film packages for the Primetime Emmy Awards, and The World Stunt Awards, among others.  In 2001, Moll served as an editor and supervising producer on The Unfinished Journey, directed by Spielberg as a millennium special for the White House New Year’s telecast.

In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Moll established and operated The Shoah Foundation with Steven Spielberg for the purpose of videotaping Holocaust survivor testimonies around the world.  The Foundation videotaped over 50,000 testimonies, in 57 countries.  Moll also produced the interactive CD-ROM, Survivors, narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio and Winona Ryder. 

Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Moll was raised in Los Angeles and earned a degree from USC Film School.  Before graduation, Moll worked in feature film development for producer Lauren Shuler Donner at Walt Disney Studios.  He then became assistant to, and then director of development for, renowned French writer/director Francis Veber (“La Cage Aux Folles”, “The Dinner Game”). 

Moll established Allentown Productions to develop and produce non-fiction theatrical and television films.  Moll is a member of the DGA, the Television Academy, the Motion Picture Academy, and serves on the Executive Committee of the Documentary Branch of the Motion Picture Academy.

Articles by James Moll

	Indie Film & Documentary Running the Sahara Running 4300 miles across the world's largest desert sounds impossible. But once Academy Award-winning director James Moll heard that three guys were going to try, he knew he had to hear - and tell - their story. In this Creative COW Magazine expanded interview, James talks about the incredible journey of both the runners and the filmmakers, while also offering insights into filmmaking, storytelling, and the frame. Feature