About
Dempsey Rice is the daughter of a therapist and an avid amateur photographer – her father took over 2,000 family photos when she was a child. When she was in High School her classmates used to groan when she asked ‘yet another question.’ Is it any wonder that Dempsey grew up to become a documentarian? It was the only profession where she could ask questions, listen to the stories people tell and document them using visual media.
Dempsey is currently a SPARC Artist in Residence at the Council Center for Senior Citizens in Midwood, Brooklyn. THE LISTENING PROJECT: MIDWOOD is a series of informal oral history interviews with members of the Council Center for Senior Citizens in Midwood, Brooklyn. The project represents the way in which an individual life, and the many lives within a community, are collaged, scrapped and quilted together to create a larger whole.
Her documentary film FORGET ME NOTS (2010 -17 minutes) is a turnkey that opens viewers to the glimpses of the people, places and ideas that make up remembrance but it also challenges the very nature of those remembrances. FORGET ME NOTS is the recipient of a Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund Grant, a KKL Foundation Grant, and a Mary Duke Biddle Foundation Grant.
Dempsey’s debut documentary, DAUGHTER OF SUICIDE (1999 – 72 minutes), premiered on HBO Signature in May of 2000 — it is the story of 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.
In 1994 Dempsey graduated with her MA (Econ.) in Visual Anthropology from The University of Manchester in England where she completed her short film AS LONG AS THEY’RE MUSLIM. She received her BA from Syracuse University (Magna Cum Laude) in Photojournalism and Anthropology in 1991.
