Larry Engel is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker with more than 30 years of experience spanning all seven continents. He combines many skills including producing, writing, directing and cinematography. Engel has also been teaching during that time, and in 2004 joined the Film and Media Arts faculty in the School of Communication at American University in the nation’s capital. In 2009 he was granted tenure.
Engel teaches a range of theory and production courses; he is also an associate director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking and co-author of “The Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking,” endorsed by the International Documentary Association and the University Film & Video Association.
His most recent productions are “The Human Spark,” a PBS special series scheduled for airing in 2009 hosted by Alan Alda who travels the world investigating the origins of the things that made humans uniquely human, and “The World Without Sunlight,” the first of six shows in a series for the Science Channel. Engel is the series director and director of photography on both. In 2007 he produced and edited, and was the director of photography on the independent feature “Apology.”
His work appears on most of the major international and domestic outlets for science and adventure including Channel 4 (UK), BBC, Channel 5 (UK), Canal Plus (FR), National Geographic, TBS, the Discovery Channels, the History Channel, and PBS.
Engel is an avid skier who doesn’t have the time for it much anymore but enjoys and finds the time for mountain biking. He lives on a farm in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York when he’s not in DC, where he and his wife tend to a menagerie of animals including horses, donkeys, llamas, goats and sheep along with a bunch of chickens, whose eggs are in high demand. Carolyn and he also run a wildlife rehabilitation center for orphaned and injured animals (Mid-Hudson Wildlife Rescue).
He believes that there is no better way to help the earth and its inhabitants than by telling their stories through film.
Multimedia by Larry Engel
- Videos: Lost in Detention (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Gilberto, migrant resource center (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Diego, failed to cross (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Minerva, Deported Mom (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Janet Warner, American Bartender (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Father Pete Neeley, Border Priest (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Florence Detention Center (October 17th, 2011)
- Video: Arizona detainee (October 17th, 2011)





