Synopsis

About the Film

A son’s riveting look at a father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller, THE MAN NOBODY KNEW: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER, CIA SPYMASTER WILLIAM COLBY uncovers the secret world of a legendary CIA spymaster. Told by William Colby’s son Carl, the story is at once a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation’s most cloaked actions.

From the beginning of his career as an OSS officer parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, William Colby rose through the ranks of “The Company,” and soon was involved in covert operations in hot spots around the globe. He swayed elections against the Communists in Italy, oversaw the coup against President Diem in Saigon, and ran the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which sparked today’s legacy of counter-insurgency. But after decades of obediently taking on the White House’s toughest and dirtiest assignments, and rising to become Director of CIA, Colby defied the President. Braving intense controversy, he opened up to Congress some of the agency’s darkest, most tightly held secrets and extra-legal operations.

About the Filmmakers

Carl Colby

(Director/Producer) An award-winning documentary filmmaker who has made films about such subjects as Franz Kline, William de Kooning, Bob Marley, Frank Gehry, George Hurrell and Franco Zeffirelli, among others. He began his career in the art business in Washington and New York. While attending Georgetown University, he was President of the University Film Society where he hosted tributes to Milos Forman, Larry McMurtry, Liv Ullman and William Friedkin under the banner of the Master Filmmakers Series.

David Johnson

(Producer) is the founder of Act 4 Entertainment, a filmed entertainment and new media content company with a distinct social action perspective.  He executive produced “The People Speak,” a feature length documentary with Matt Damon and other actors and musicians based on Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States” for the History Channel and is executive producing the forthcoming “Florence of Arabia” starring Charlize Theron. Act 4 is in development on approximately20 feature films, television or new media projects and also the live stage musical version of “American Psycho.”

Grace Guggenheim

(Producer) has been a producer and executive producer of historical documentaries with Guggenheim Productions, Inc. for the past twenty-five years.  Guggenheim has produced over fifteen documentaries for both television and theatrical release. She served as producer of the PBS documentary Berga: Soldiers of Another War, a co-production with WNET/Thirteen New York debuted in a national broadcast on May 28, 2003 on PBS, which was short listed for the Academy Awards® nominations and then went onto win the IDA Pare Lorenz Award.   Her credits also include: Harry S. Truman: 1884 -1972, the Academy Award®-nominated A Place in the Land, the Academy Award®-nominated D-Day Remembered, the Academy Award®-winning The Johnstown Flood, Clear Pictures, LBJ: A Remembrance and A Life: The Story of Lady Bird Johnson.

Jay Freund

(Editor) has edited dozens of films for television and theatrical distribution during a forty year career.  His films have won numerous awards, including a Best Actress Oscar® for Geraldine Page (The Trip To Bountiful) and a Best Actress Emmy for Vanessa Redgrave (Playing For Time).  Among his extensive documentary credits are Tanaz Eshagian’s recently released Love Crimes Of Kabul and Be Like Others ,Harry Moses’ Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollack,  Ofra Bikel’s  Emmy Award winning Public Hearing/Private Pain and Jennifer Fox’s 10 hour series An American Love Story.

Michael Bacon

(Composer) His projects include: Teddy: In His Own Words (Emmy Winner), Gloria Steinem:In Her Own Words, Boy Interrupted, The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer the theme for Bill Moyer’s Journal, and African American Lives (1 and 2); as well as the more recent This Emotional Life, Faces of America, Rescuing Russia and The Buddha. Bacon won an Emmy for The Kennedys, an Ace Award nomination for The Man Who Loved Sharks, as well as the BMI Television Music Award and The Chicago Film Festival Gold Plaque Award for music in LBJ.

Act 4 Entertainment

A development and production company that focuses on current socially or politically relevant content that incites people to act in areas of human rights, economic justice, political reform, and environmental issues. Through feature films, documentaries, television shows, online media, and stage productions, Act 4′s projects share the fundamental value that enhanced understanding leads to social action.