Hudson West Productions

Hudson West Productions makes socially meaningful documentary films about the arts, history, and education. Founded in 1985, Hudson West’s mission is to fill in gaps in the “cultural dial” left by commercial media by preserving, interpreting, and presenting unique but overlooked narratives to a wide audience.

In February 2011, Hudson West returns to PBS with three new episodes  of Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook, produced and directed by Amber Edwards with Dave Davidson as Co-Producer and Director of Photography. Season Two continues to chronicle the adventures of  singer and music historian Michael Feinstein as he travels the world performing and preserving the treasures of The American Songbook.

In 2010, Hudson West provided four hours of primetime programming to PBS: Season One of  Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook (three episodes premiering October 6, 13, and 20^th) received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Broadcast Award for Outstanding Musical Content and was a finalist in two categories at The International Documentary Association Awards.  The New York Times proclaimed it “…a quirky, thoughtful melange of history and biography.”

In May 2010, PBS premiered A Place Out of Time—The Bordentown School, the story of the rise and fall of the last publicly funded, co-educational, all-black boarding school north of the Mason-Dixon line. Directed by Dave Davidson , co-produced by Davidson and Amber Edwards and narrated by legendary actress Ruby Dee, A Place Out of Time was the only PBS program to receive the Christopher Award in 2011, for “media that salutes the highest values of the human spirit.” The New York Times said of the film: “Bittersweet humanity...You could listen to a lot of dry lectures...and still not learn as much about race issues as you do in A Place Out of Time.”

Currently in post-production is a documentary pioneering avant-garde artist and filmmaker Hans Richter, Everything Turns, Everything Revolves, directed by Dave Davidson, which will premiere at the Los Angeles County Museum in 2013 in conjunction with a major retrospective of Richter’s work. The film has inspired a parallel documentary project, Rescoring Richter, which follows contemporary sound artists as they create new soundtracks for Richter’s experimental films of the 1920s.

Over the past 25 years, Hudson West has introduced PBS viewers to gospel and rhythm & blues pioneer Cissy Houston (Cissy Houston: Sweet Inspiration, 1988); the legendary one-legged tap dancer and resort owner Peg Leg Bates (The Dancing Man: Peg Leg Bates, 1992); the inventors and impresarios of the early motion picture industry (Into the Light—The Furious Birth of the Motion Picture Industry, 1995); and the not-so-ordinary life of public schools, as seen from the inside (Quicksand & Banana Peels-A Year in the Life of Two Principals, 1998; Brick City Lessons, 1999 and No Place to Be Smart-The Brightest Kids in Public Schools, 2000).

All of Hudson West’s documentaries have been broadcast in the USA on PBS stations. Our films have also been seen on television in the UK, Norway, and Australia, and have screened at film festivals in New York, Chicago, Paris, Dublin, Montreal, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Sydney, and Upsala (Sweden.) A partial list of awards includes 2 Emmys, 5 CINE Golden Eagles,  the Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Silver Plaque from the Chicago Film Festival, Director’s Choice at the Black Maria Film Festival, and a CEN Programming Award for Public Affairs. 

As a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 production company, Hudson West has received grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Prudential Foundation, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, the Hyde-Watson Foundation, PSE&G, the New Jersey Historical Commission, and numerous private foundations and individuals.