Mary Lampson is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker and editor. Her documentaries include, Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple, co-edited with Nancy Baker), Underground (co-directed with Emile de Antonio and Haskell Wexler), and Until She Talks which she directed. She has worked with filmmakers Ricky Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker, and has produced and directed 25 short live-action films for SESAME STREET.
Recent projects include: Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin and Carl Deal), Kimjonglilia (N.C. Heikin), Queen of Versailles and Generation Wealth (Lauren Greenfield), This Changes Everything (Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein), The Islands and the Whales (Mike Day), The Bad Kids (Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe), Crime and Punishment (Stephen Maing), Eating Animals (Christopher Quinn), Midnight Family and A Still Small Voice (Luke Lorentzen), Crip Camp (Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht), The Disappearance of Shere Hite (Nicole Newnham), Joonam, (Sierra Urich).
Mary has been both a fellow and advisor at the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Editing and Story Lab (2005-2017), an Artist in Residence at the Sundance Nonfiction Director’s Residency (2018) and an advisor for the Labs & Fellowships programs at the Points North Institute in Camden, Maine. She served on the board of the Points North Institute from 2011 to 2018. She has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2012.
At the Shorenstein Center, Mary will be working on a book about the art, craft, and ethics of documentary film editing, focusing on the thousands of small conscious and unconscious editing decisions that eventually create the story viewers see and the understanding they take away from a film.
