Hope Dies Last

Film phase:Post Production

SYNOPSIS

Hope Dies Last explores the changing face of energy production in the United States through one man’s unusual life and legacy. “Atomic” Ed Grothus spent decades as an activist and educator, while collecting tons of detritus from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in his unofficial museum of the nuclear age, The Black Hole. In his final days, Ed confronts his own death with honesty and humor, looking forward to the legacy of hope he wants to leave behind.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Ellen Spiro is an American documentary filmmaker who is both a Guggenheim and two-time Rockefeller Fellow. In 2007 she released Body of War (co-directed and co-produced with Phil Donahue) which was short-listed for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and won Best Documentary of 2007 from the National Board of Review. Spiro’s other award-winning films have been shown broadcast on television worldwide on PBS, HBO, BBC, CBC and NHK[2] and in the art world, including multiple screenings at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum Biennial exhibition. Spiro is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Jerome Foundation Fellowship, a commendation from the Texas State Legislature (Senate Resolution 545)[3], and is a two-time Rockefeller Fellowship recipient. Her works are housed in the permanent collections of the UCLA Film and Television Archive, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Peabody Collection of The Paley Center for Media, and the New York Public Library.