Friends of the LBJ Library | Jun, 4 2025 6:30PM - 8:00PM
THIS PROGRAM IS SOLD OUT. WE ARE NO LONGER TAKING REGISTRATIONS.
For questions or to check on your membership, please email friends@lbjfoundation.org.
Learn more about the film series
Join Austin PBS and the LBJ Presidential Library for a special program with award-winning filmmakers Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein. Guests will enjoy a sneak peek of the forthcoming documentary series THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, premiering on PBS on November 16. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Burns, Botstein, and Jane Kamensky, PhD, President & CEO, Monticello. The conversation will be moderated by Mark K. Updegrove, President and CEO of the LBJ Foundation.
About the Film:
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down.
Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.
An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Through their individual stories, viewers experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: the rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen (some of them teenagers), Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies, and various civilians living in North America, Loyalist as well as Patriot, including many made refugees by the war.
About the Speakers:
Sarah Botstein has produced some of the most popular and acclaimed documentaries on PBS. She is currently producing and co-directing The American Revolution along with Ken Burns and David Schmidt. Her previous work includes Jazz, The War, Prohibition, The Vietnam War, College Behind Bars, and Hemingway. The U.S. and the Holocaust marked Botstein's debut as a co-director.
Botstein works closely with PBS LearningMedia to develop educational materials as part of the Ken Burns Classroom, and she was an original contributor to Ken Burns's UNUM.
In addition to The American Revolution, Botstein is working on a three-part series about Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society.
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost fifty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust; The American Buffalo; and, most recently, Leonardo da Vinci.
Future film projects include The American Revolution, Emancipation to Exodus, and LBJ & the Great Society, among others.
Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In November of 2022, Ken was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Jane Kamensky, PhD, is President and CEO of Monticello/The Thomas Jefferson Foundation. A leading historian of early America and the United States, she earned her BA and PhD in history from Yale University. For thirty years, she worked as a professor and higher education leader, most recently as Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University and Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Kamensky serves as a member of the National Advisory Council of More Perfect and as one of the principal investigators on the NEH/ Department of Education-funded initiative, Educating for American Democracy, among many other public history roles.
Film Funders:
Corporate funding for THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION was provided by Bank of America.
Major funding was provided by The Better Angels Society and its members Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine with the Crimson Lion Foundation; and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Major funding was also provided by David M. Rubenstein; The Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Family Foundation; Lilly Endowment Inc.; and the following Better Angels Society members: Eric and Wendy Schmidt; Stephen A. Schwarzman; and Kenneth C. Griffin with Griffin Catalyst.
Additional support for THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION was provided by: The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; The Pew Charitable Trusts; Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling; Park Foundation; and the following Better Angels Society members: Gilchrist and Amy Berg; Perry and Donna Golkin; The Michelson Foundation; Jacqueline B. Mars; Kissick Family Foundation; Diane and Hal Brierley; John H. N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell; John and Catherine Debs; The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund; Philip I. Kent; Gail Elden; Deborah and Jon Dawson; David and Susan Kreisman; The McCloskey Family Charitable Trust; Becky and Jim Morgan; Carol and Ned Spieker; Mark A. Tracy; and Paul and Shelley Whyte.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION was made possible, in part, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Location and Parking:
The Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium is located on the lower level of the LBJ complex at 2313 Red River St. Access to the auditorium will be through the lobby of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Complimentary parking will be available; details will be shared with registered attendees.
If you plan to attend and need any accommodations -- for example, sign language interpretation services, a service animal, or other -- please email events@lbjfoundation.org to share your request. Thanks in advance.
