Director and writer Rick Rowley ‘94 won an Emmy Award for best Investigative Documentary for 16 Shots, a film that tells the story of a cover-up following the police shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago in 2014.
He also directed Dirty Wars, a feature documentary that was nominated for an Academy Award in 2012. Dirty Wars shed light on the covert wars the U.S. has engaged in around the world.
Rowley spoke with UWC-USA students and alumni last fall about the challenges of telling stories about charged issues such as police shootings and covert wars. He credits his storytelling skill in part with his experience at UWC-USA, where he had to learn to understand the concerns and perspectives of people from very different backgrounds.
As a documentarian, Rick works hard to tell the stories of people whose stories are not otherwise being told – or that are being told incompletely.