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Christine Fugate

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Christine Fugate
BornLos Angeles, California
OccupationFilmmaker, director, writer
GenreDocumentary Films, Independent films, interviews, journalism, television
Notable worksTobacco Blues (1998), Grief Becomes Me (2006)
Notable awardsShowbiz Data's Top 100 Directors
Website
christinefugate.com

Christine Fugate is an American film producer and director who has filmed across the globe, making projects in Thailand, Malawi, Australia and Great Britain.[1]

Fugate is known for her documentaries and independent films. She is also a journalist, interviewer, and author of Mothering Heights, a column which was published in the Laguna Beach Independent.[2] In 2008, she edited a collection of essays by women sharing diverse perspectives on the same subject, The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood, Volume I. She also writes short stories which have appeared in several short story collections including in “Beach Reads: Adrift” and “Beach Reads: Paradise”.[3]

Life

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Fugate was born in Los Angeles and raised in Lexington, Kentucky.[1] She completed her undergraduate education at Tulane University where she studied history, and went on to earn a Master of Arts in Asian film and theater at the University of Hawaiʻi.  She studied the Thai language and researched her thesis, The Power to Choose: Women in Thai Film, 1975–1990, while interning in the Thai film industry. After completing her master's degree, she moved to Thailand where she co-directed her first narrative feature film “สาวขี้อาย” (“Shy Girl”).[1]

She returned to Los Angeles in the 1990s to continue her work as a filmmaker.

Career

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Fugate began her Hollywood career in 1990 as French director Barbet Schroeder's assistant for the film Single White Female. Subsequently, she worked as Creative Vice President for Pacific Rim Productions where she was an Associate Producer on the HBO film Natural Causes in 1994.

In the late 1990s, Fugate produced and directed a series of independent films, including The Southern Sex (1992), Mother Love (1996), Tobacco Blues (1998)[4] and The Girl Next Door (1999).[5][6]

Tobacco Blues was screened on board Air Force One for President Bill Clinton.[7] In 2023, the film was added to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.[8]

Feature-length documentary The Girl Next Door (1999) about “Oklahoma native Stacy Valentine's rise to stardom in the adult film industry, had a successful theatrical run in over 25 cities throughout the US and Canada” and landed Fugate on ShowBizData's list of Top Directors.[7]

Fugate went on the road with rock band KISS, directing an episode of VH1's FanClub about them (2000).[9]  She also directed the pilot for the Discovery series, Reconcilable Differences (2003).[10]

In 2005, she rendered the poetry of writer Donna Hilbert for the screen in Grief Becomes Me (2005), which premiered at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference and at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. Fugate went on to create a biopic connecting Hilbert's life and work, titled Grief Becomes Me: A Love Story (2009).[11]

Fugate produced, wrote and directed Queen Moorea (2022), a documentary that follows six years in the life of Laguna Beach High School homecoming queen Moorea Howson and her life with Williams Syndrome.[12] The cinéma vérité film “shares an intimate look into the gifts and struggles of growing up with a disability in America.”[13] Queen Moorea premiered at the Coast Film Festival and screened at the Slamdance Film Festival. The film also had an international festival run, screening at the Courage Film Festival in Berlin, the Twelve Lions Festival, the Spain International Film Festival and the Anchorage International Film Festival, among others.[13]   

Fugate is an assistant professor of film at Chapman University's Dodge College of Film & Media Arts. She is fluent in Italian and was recently invited to be a fellow of the Ferucci Institute (2024).[14]

She lives in Orange County, California,[15] and has two children.  She maintains a low public profile.  

Filmography

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Portrait Displays (August 28, 2023). Christine Fugate; Filmmaker | Creators in Motion. Retrieved June 24, 2024 – via YouTube.
  2. ^ "Mothering Heights | www.lagunabeachindependent.com | Laguna Beach Independent". Archived from the original on July 26, 2009. Retrieved October 11, 2008.
  3. ^ "Amazon Author Page: Christine Fugate". Amazon.com.[dead link‍]
  4. ^ Goodman, Walter (June 9, 1998). "TELEVISION REVIEW; When Good People Grow a Dangerous Plant". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 20, 2017. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  5. ^ "DER Documentary – The Girl Next Door". Archived from the original on November 1, 2008. Retrieved October 31, 2008.
  6. ^ Stamets, Bill (May 5, 2000). "Porn star documentary reveals little". Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018 – via HighBeam Research.
  7. ^ a b "Christine Fugate on Baby Films". www.focusfeatures.com. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  8. ^ Fugate, Christine, Tobacco Blues, KET, Harry Dean Stanton, KET, retrieved June 24, 2024
  9. ^ "Christine Fugate | Producer, Director, Writer". IMDb. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  10. ^ Reconcilable Differences, GRB Entertainment, retrieved June 24, 2024
  11. ^ "Grief Becomes Me". Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved September 28, 2008.
  12. ^ "Professor's Documentary Follows Life of 'Queen Moorea', Screens at Sundance". Chapman Newsroom. October 25, 2022. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  13. ^ a b "About". Queen Moorea - a film by Christine Fugate. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  14. ^ "The Team". www.chapman.edu. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  15. ^ "Stowe Story Labs Announces Roster for Stowe's Narrative Lab". Stowe Story Labs. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  16. ^ Mannis, Valerie (October 31, 2000). "Constructing the Mothering Experience: Videos on Motherhood". Feminist Collections. 22 (1): 12. 221186202. Retrieved June 8, 2018 – via Proquest.
  17. ^ Koch, John (June 9, 1988). "'Tobacco' doesn't reach far enough". Boston Globe. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 6, 2018 – via HighBeam.
  18. ^ Clodfelter, Tim (June 13, 1988). "DOCUMENTARY TELLS STORIES OF 4 FAMILIES TRYING TO PRESERVE THEIR WAY OF LEAF". Winston Salem Journal. ProQuest 370429811.
  19. ^ Pevere, Geoff (July 14, 2014). "Unrestricted access to an unrestricted life". Toronto Star. ProQuest 438137141.
  20. ^ Lawrence, Robert (June 9, 1998). "For growers, tobacco is a way of life, not just a crop". The San Diego Union – Tribune. ProQuest 271599618.
  21. ^ Howe, Desson (June 13, 2003). "'The Girl Next Door': A Star in Porn". The Washington Post. ProQuest 409463567.
  22. ^ Siegel, Joel (June 19, 2003). "Sex, Lives, and Videotape; Capturing the Friedmans; The Girl Next Door". Washington City Paper. ProQuest 362676152.
  23. ^ Zebrowski, John (September 8, 2000). "Porn expose 'The Girl Next Door' is more sad than sexy". The Seattle Times. ProQuest 383381368.
  24. ^ David, Eliot (June 1, 2000). "Getting to know her; Porn actress is the 'Girl Next Door". San Diego Union – Tribune. ProQuest 271698316.
  25. ^ Holden, Stephen (April 14, 2000). "FILM REVIEW; When Heavy Breathing Is a Job Requirement". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 5, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
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