Dempsey Rice * About

Dempsey Rice is a documentary filmmaker and artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her films are the avenues through which she explores the core issues that compel her to create: family, personal history, story, connection, loss, legacy, memory and ideas of home. In addition to her own creative work, Dempsey's company Start Up Media creates videos for artists, authors and technology start-ups.

Dempsey is currently a Brooklyn Arts Council Artist in Residence at the Council Center for Senior Citizens in Midwood, Brooklyn where she is working with seniors to create short documentaries. In addition, she is working with Kate Edgar on a new independent documentary project about the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, MD.

Dempsey completed a new short documentary in Februrary 2010. Forget Me Nots is a film about remembering. The act of remembering is so intrinsic to our experience that we usually don’t even notice it, but remembering is the key to our identity – it opens doors though which we access the stories and experiences that make up our lives. Forget Me Nots is the recipient of a Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund Grant, a KKL Foundation Grant, a Mary Duke Biddle Foundation Grant and several in-kind and cash donations from individuals.

Her debut documentary, Daughter of Suicide, premiered on HBO Signature in May of 2000 -- it is the story of the her mother's death by suicide and the process of family and friends healing after that suicide. Daughter of Suicide is the recipient of a National Council on Family Relations Media Awards (First Place: Mental Health, Stress, Transition, & Crisis Management Category, 2001), a National Mental Health Association Media Award, (National Television: Educational or Pubic Service Programming Category, 2001) and a Cine Golden Eagle (2000) and received funding from Home Box Office, The Jerome Foundation, The Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund, The Women in Film Foundation, From the Heart Productions and R.E.M.

In 2003, Dempsey received a New York Emmy Award for being the Series Producer of IMNY, a youth documentary series produced by Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV) for WNYE/Channel 25 in New York City. IMNY featured short documentaries made by New York City youth that explore the unique stories, neighborhoods and challenges of their lives.