Biography

Richard Kotuk (November 23^rd 1943 – February 10, 1998) was a lifelong New York City resident. His childhood was spent growing up in the East Village with his parents John Kotuk and Pearl Kotuk and his younger sister Maggie Kotuk.

As a student, Richard Kotuk showed academic aptitude. He attended New York University with a major in English and minors in Journalism and Spanish. As a student, he won the New York University Fiction Writing Award. He was also a member of the Academic Honor Society and on the Dean’s List. In 1964, he completed B.A. degree. Then, in 1965, he completed The Writer’s Workshop graduate program at The State University of Iowa. In 1978, he graduated with an M.A. degree in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research.

Kotuk’s career did not begin in broadcast and film industry. Instead, it began in advertising. After graduation, he worked for several well-known advertising agencies. From 1965 to 1968, he worked as a print and television copywriter and producer for Grey Advertising, Ted Bates Advertising and Ogilvy & Mather Advertising.

After spending several years working in advertising, Kotuk became a feature writer for The Village Voice, a weekly alternative newspaper in New York City. During that time, he also held several other positions. He was a documentary film writer for the satire comedy variety television series The Great American Dream Machine. The series was the original showcase for the comedian and actor Chevy Chase, produced by WNET and broadcasted on PBS from 1971 to 1973. He also wrote for the Anti-Drug Abuse Campaign for The Advertising Council and the Federal Government. In addition, he wrote and produced television and radio pieces for the Odyssey House; a treatment facility for individuals suffering from drug addictions and mental disorders. His short story titled “Steve” was published as a part of the 1972 Bobbs Merrill anthology, Survival Prose.

In 1973, he became a writer and director of television projects for the Children’s Aid Society, a private charitable organization in New York City. From June to September 1973, he worked as a producer, writer and director for the United Nations’s film department on an environmental-ecology series titled Man Builds/Man Destroys. A part of the series, the half-hour film Through The Mill Once More was broadcasted on PBS and in United Nations member countries.

In 1974, he produced and directed television and radio projects with the famous actor E.G. Marshall for Cancer Care, Inc. (a national non-profit organization that provides free support services to individuals affected by cancer). That same year, he also worked as a writer for television spots for the New York Addiction Services Agency.

Kotuk then expanded his prolific career to teaching. As an educator, he stressed the importance of going to the heart of the matter with every person and situation. He encouraged his students to make films that will reach and truly communicate with their audiences. Independence, commitment and dedication to the art of filmmaking were things he demanded from his students. On the other hand, he took on the role of a colleague, providing honest feedback and steadfast guidance sometimes spending hours with students sitting in an editing room.

In 1975, he became an Instructor and the Director of The Educational Broadcasting Corporation’s Television Training Workshop in Film and Videotape Production program for minority students at Thirteen/WNET. From 1977 to 1979, he taught several course in the M.A. program for Media Studies at The New School for Social Research, which included: Media and American Culture, Documentary Film/ Video and Television, and Investigative Reporting in association with The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. For 8 years (1984 to 1992), he served as a professor of Broadcast and Print Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He was also the Executive Producer for student Documentary & News Programming. In 1993, he served as a visiting professor of Television, Film & Communication Studies at Ramapo State College of New Jersey.

Staying true to his egalitarian nature, Kotuk urged his students to go out  into the communities and neighborhoods of New York, to get to know the individuals and to create films about who they really are. A lot of his students’ works were broadcasted on PBS, Thirteen/WNET, WGBH, WHYY, KCET, KNME and WETA Public Television. One of the student’s pieces, ‘Who’s Going to Care for These Children?’ received the National Student Emmy Award for Best Documentary Film. Broadcasted on P.O.V. on PBS, the film talked about the rapidly growing number of babies afflicted with AIDS and two women who adopted children with AIDS. ’Gloria’, another student piece, documented the loving relationship between eight-year-old Gloria and Greg, her 26-year-old AIDS afflicted father. It was broadcasted on Health Quarterly, WGBH and PBS. Also, ‘Sergei’ – a portrait of a Russian pianist struggling to make it in America, received a New Jersey Public Television Emmy.

Kotuk’s works are notable for their connection to the working class and individuals who are ‘down on their luck’. He was also known for not shying away from touchy subjects and visuals. He doggedly pursued the truth without stepping on the dignity of his subjects. His compelling stories are presented in a brutally honest and objective way. These qualities are consistently reflected in his documentary films and broadcast pieces. Overall, he had produced, written and directed more than twenty full-length documentary films as well as numerous public and cultural affairs broadcasts, special reports and magazine pieces.

He spent six years (from 1971 to 1977) with WNET/Thirteen in New York on two of their cultural affairs and news programs as a senior producer and writer for Bill Moyers’ Journal as well as a producer, reporter and director of national and local public and cultural affairs broadcasts for The 51^st State. Afterwards, he worked for CBS News and WCBS-TV in New York for four years (from 1977 to 1981) as a Producer of Public Affairs Broadcast, Special Reports, News and Documentaries as well as a live remote, microwave and ENG Producer and Coordinator.

His persistent dedication to bringing hidden stories of the downtrodden to light earned him numerous awards and honors including: an Academy Awards nomination, thirteen Emmy awards, The National Brotherhood Award, a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Film Making, two first-place Associated Press Broadcasters Awards, two Broadcast Media Awards and The Community Service Program Award. He also won a Broadcast Industry Award presented by San Francisco State University and a Certificate of Merit from National Catholic Association for Broadcasters.

He earned multiple Emmy awards for the stories he produced for The 51^st State such as ‘COPS’, ‘The Occupant In The Single Room’, ‘The Battered Children’. ‘Rosedale: The Way It Is’ is a story he produced for the Bill Moyers’ Journal in 1976. It won The National Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Kotuk’s last documentary, Travis, made in 1998, was supposed to be part one of a multi-part series entitled A Death In The Family. Travis is about the daily struggles of an eight-year-old boy from Highbridge, South Bronx who is suffering from full-blown AIDS. Travis lives with his grandmother Mrs. Jefferies.

Kotuk first met Travis in 1995 at the Special Needs Clinic at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Travis was visiting his therapist, Dr. Rabinowitz. With a big smile on his face, he greeted Kotuk and asked who he was. Kotuk introduced himself as “Rich, the guy with the video camera” and that he was making a documentary about the children in the hospital. “You are?”, Travis asked softly but with an excitement and fascination Kotuk would come to know and love.

Kotuk followed Travis for three years during which he became close to not only Travis and his grandmother but also his doctors and people in the Highbridge neighborhood. The filming process yielded about 300 hours of footage. The filmmaking process became personal to Kotuk. He felt that for the first time, the film “became inferior” and “much less important than Travis (the subject)”.

Travis won several awards such as: winning first place of Eastman Kodak Award in the Double Take Documentary Film Festival, the Best Health Awareness Documentary from New York International Independent Film & Video Festival, the George Foster Peabody Award and the Christopher Award for writing.

On February 10, 1998, not long after Travis was completed, Kotuk passed away suddenly from a heart attack. Several months later, the film won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. His sister, Maggie Kotuk, along with Travis and Mrs. Jefferies received the award on his behalf. After his death, Travis remained close to Kotuk’s family. He visited Maggie a lot and called her Aunt Maggie. In 2002, an Israeli television called Maggie to tell her that Travis would be the starting film shown in Israel for their AIDS awareness week.

Though Richard Kotuk is no longer with us, his work continues to reach and touch audiences through his earnest and heartfelt storytelling.