Orlando Bagwell & GBH

Recently, at the annual PitchBLACK conference, Black Public Media honored acclaimed documentary filmmaker and former GBH producer Orlando Bagwell with its prestigious Trailblazer Award. The award is given to makers who have produced a high-quality body of work over time, while also distinguishing themselves as outstanding teachers/mentors to others. We join BPM in celebrating Orlando and invite you to learn more about him and his amazing body of work. Through his talent and generosity, he has spurred others to tell important, impactful stories. GBH congratulates Orlando and looks forward to amplifying the voices of the countless filmmakers he has inspired.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Orlando earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While working as a teacher, he was offered an opportunity at GBH’s Say Brother (now Basic Black) as a cameraman, and later went on to work at FRONTLINE, where he documented Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid in Running with Jesse.

In 1987, with his first independent production company, Roja Productions, Inc., Orlando produced Roots of Resistance: A Story of the Underground Railroad with AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. His prolific career has yielded several documentary treasures produced in partnership with GBH, including two episodes of the our groundbreaking series Eyes on the Prize (1987, Mississippi: Is this America? and Ain't Scared of Your Jails) and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’s Malcolm X: Make it Plain (1994), among other projects. He also was executive producer of Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery (1998), as well as directing an episode of the landmark series.

In 2004, Orlando joined the Ford Foundation to direct its Freedom of Expression unit. Orlando left Ford in 2013 to return to filmmaking and was soon tapped to lead the documentary program at U.C. Berkeley’s Grad School of Journalism, a post he held until 2020. Over the years, Orlando’s work has received Emmy, Peabody, and Oscar recognition, along with other industry and academic honors, and has captured the history of Black resistance — from slavery to the civil rights and Black power movements, to present-day stories of race and conflict in contemporary American society.