About Face at Sundance

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders's About Face premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. EYES IN Editor-in-Chief, Vivian van Dijk, attended the screening and commented on this masterpiece of a documentary:

"A documentary that shows beauty in all her facets. With huge doses of humor and relativism Timothy lets the super models look back at this unique time of freedom, stardom, glamour-life, and the ability to stay beautiful and to survive the industry with a strong personality. The documentary is a witness of that special super model era, but also gives an insight into the minds behind the beautiful faces. A must see for any woman, model or not, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The best message from the documentary and the era is that real beauty is on the inside. The bad ingredients of that era like sexual assault towards models, the drugs, racism, and the comparison of being a prostitute, seems to have been replaced by better ingredients in the current model industry of today. 'The super models indirectly show their enormous naivety of the times. Timothy seems to have nailed the inner peace of those former super models in the 'now' which makes the reflection of the crazy model world of 'then' even more transparent."

Portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s lush new film is an intimate view of the women whose images have defined our sense of beauty over the past five decades. An uncensored look at many of the biggest names in modeling, About Face reveals the stories behind the magazine covers displaying these multicultural pioneers. Each woman is candidly interviewed in the studio and shares her experiences, ideas on longevity, and philosophy of life in the fashion industry. Elegant archival footage and interviews with designer Calvin Klein and agency head Eileen Ford round out this absorbing chronicle.

About Face is a step back in time to a glamorous, yet complicated, era when drugs were rampant and women were routinely harassed and mistreated. The divergent attitudes among the women about everything from the business of modeling, to aging and plastic surgery, are fascinating and priceless. This insightful documentary celebrates the raw intelligence and staying power of these timeless icons.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' portraits are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library, The Whitney Museum and The National Portrait Gallery among others. In 2004, seven hundred of his art world portraits were accepted into the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

A number of books on Greenfield-Sanders' work have been published: "Art World" (Fotofolio), "Timothy Greenfield-Sanders" his first monograph, (Alberico Cetti Serbelloni Editori), "XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits" (Bulfinch Press) "Face to Face" (Skira), "Look: Portraits Backstage at Olympus Fashion Week" (Powerhouse) "The Black List" (Atria of Simon and Schuster) "The Latino List (Luxury) and "The Black List 50" (Luxury).

Greenfield-Sanders produced and directed seven films. His first, "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", was a feature documentary about the legendary rock musician. The film aired in April 1998 on the PBS Series American Masters and premiered in the United States at Sundance Film Festival and in Europe at The Berlin Film Festival. It screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide. "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart" won a 1998 Grammy Award for best music documentary.

"Thinking XXX", a film about the making of the XXX book, first aired in October 2004 on HBO. A CD of the soundtrack of "Thinking XXX" was released in November 2004 by Ryko Records. In addition, in October 2004, the XXX portraits were exhibited in New York at the Mary Boone Gallery. Subsequently, the work travelled to numerous galleries including John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, Bernd Kluser Gallery in Munich, Berman/Turner Projectsin Los Angeles, Paolo Curti Gallery in Milan and Howard Russeck Gallery in Palm Beach.

In 2006, Greenfield-Sanders photographed injured soldiers and marines for HBO's film, "Alive Day Memories". The images were published worldwide, shown in numerous exhibitions and purchased by The Library of Congress.

Between 2008-2010, Greenfield-Sanders produced and directed, in collaboration with journalist Elvis Mitchell and Freemind Ventures, The Black List Project: a series of 3 documentaries for HBO, a traveling museum exhibition of portraits organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, a book with Simon and Schuster's Atria and DVDs with Target. In addition, the project included an educational initiative in conjunction with The United Negro College Fund.

In 2011, his film "The Latino List" aired on HBO and exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum.

His latest film, "About Face" will air on HBO in the summer of 2012.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders was born in Florida. He received a B.A. in Art History from Columbia University and his Master's Degree in film from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He is a contributing photographer at Vanity Fair magazine.