Mark SamelsFilmography

We Shall Remain [TV Documentary Series]

Crew: Series Producer

Synopsis: This documentary mini-series presents 300 years worth of history in the Americas from the perspective of its native peoples. Concentrating on key, important moments in the history of the area, the series examines how various peoples like the Wampanoags of New England fought and resisted the powers Read More

American Experience: The Polio Crusade

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Julius Younger, Linda Hunt

Synopsis: Documentary filmmaker Sarah Colt draws on personal accounts of polio survivors to trace the story of the tireless crusader who rallied a nation against a little known virus that spread terror through the town of Wytheville, Virginia back in the summer of 1950. It was an epidemic the likes of which Read More

American Experience: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Chris Cooper

Synopsis: This in-depth documentary explores the death of Abraham Lincoln, the first American president to be assassinated. Gunned down in the second month of his triumphant and markedly peaceful second term, Lincoln's death had tremendous effects on the shocked American populace, making waves in everything Read More

American Experience: The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: David Strathairn

Synopsis: The life and legacy of atomic bomb creator J. Robert Oppenheimer serves as the subject of this installment of PBS's American Experience. His name forever bound to the Manhattan Project, America's most famous top-secret initiative, Oppenheimer presided over the assembly of the atomic bomb that Read More

American Experience: Grand Central

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Joe Morton

Synopsis: Explore the tragedy that inspired Grand Central Terminal and follow the dramatic construction of this awe-inspiring landmark as the filmmakers from American Experience reflect on the origins and history of a spectacular monument to the railway era. The date was January 8, 1902: A southbound Read More

American Experience: Buffalo Bill

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Experience the story of the man who cemented the concept of Wild West mythology in the hearts and minds of nostalgic historians across the globe in this documentary detailing the remarkable life of William Cody. A common plainsman who realized the potential for profit in exploiting the more Read More

American Experience: The Lobotomist

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: In this installment of American Experience, filmmakers take a closer look at one of the most controversial medical procedures in the history of medicine. Back in the early-20th Century, individuals suffering from mental illness had little hope of ever staging a full recovery: Psychiatric Read More

American Experience: Kit Carson

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Michael Murphy

Synopsis: Whether you view him as one of the great American heroes or a deplorable crusader who savaged one of the West's most mighty Native American tribes, there's no denying that Christopher "Kit" Carson played a crucial role in the development of the United States. In this documentary, director Stephen Read More

American Experience: George H.W. Bush

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: David Ogden Stiers

Synopsis: Originally produced as part of the "American Experience" documentary series, this in depth- look at the life and career of the 41st President of the United States draws on new scholarship and recently-conducted interviews with those closest to George H.W. Bush to highlight how an increasingly Read More

American Experience: Roberto Clemente

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Roberto Clemente not only became the first Latino pro baseball player to achieve superstar status, he made sure that people were aware of the issues affecting areas of the world in need of humanitarian aid. His life was tragically cut short while on a flight to Nicaragua, but this film celebrates Read More

Oswald's Ghost

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Norman Mailer, Gary Hart, Dan Rather, Mark Lane, Edward J. Epstein

Synopsis: For the Baby Boomers, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy took on the same since of tragedy as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did for Generation Y - not only for the effect that it had on a nation's morale but for the conspiracy theories that would follow in it's aftermath as Read More

American Experience: Summer of Love

Crew: Executive Producer

The Mormons

Crew: Executive Producer

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Produced for the PBS series American Experience, Stanley Nelson's Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples' Temple, written by his frequent collaborator Marcia Smith, examines the infamous religious cult formed by Jim Jones and the events that led to the group's horrifying mass suicide in Read More

American Experience: The Berlin Airlift

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: American Experience: The Berlin Airlift documents the time in 1948 that the Soviet Union blocked off all land access to Berlin, forcing humanitarian efforts to deliver food, medical supplies, and other necessities by plane for almost twelve months. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide Read More

American Experience: The Alaska Pipeline

Crew: Executive Producer

American Experience: Mary Pickford

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: American Experience: Mary Pickford documents the career of one of the first movie stars. Pickford gained enough fame and power during her storied career that she was able to form United Artists with husband Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and director D.W. Griffith. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Read More

American Experience: Victory in the Pacific

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Victory in the Pacific documents the ending of the fighting in World War II's Pacific Theater. The film shows how the brutality and fatalities increased, and lays out the timeline of the various choices that led to the dropping of the atomic bomb -- the act that led most directly to the end of Read More

American Experience: Fidel Castro

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: In 1959, when Fidel Castro led a ragtag revolutionary army which miraculously overthrew the corrupt regime of Fulgencio Batista, he was hailed as a hero around the world, though many of the same people who praised him soon became his enemies when Castro installed a Communist government and entered Read More

American Experience: Building the Alaska Highway

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This documentary chronicles the 1942 building of the Alaskan Highway. It illustrates the effect that the Pearl Harbor bombing had on the decision to begin construction and examines the hardships that the American soldiers tasked with this job were forced to endure, from fierce cold to forced Read More

American Experience: Las Vegas - An Unconventional History

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Ever since its post-World War II boom, Las Vegas has had many identities, in this documentary originally seen on PBS, the city that has been known as everything from "Sin City" to a family-friendly desert oasis is explored in all of it's glittering glory. Few American cities have received as many Read More

American Experience: Minik, The Lost Eskimo

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Though innumerable American history books have praised the doings of polar explorer Robert Peary over the years, few relayed a heartbreaking and seldom-publicized story tied directly to Peary's accomplishments. In the spring of 1897, Peary arrived in New York City, with a ship full of Read More

American Experience: The Carter Family - Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This film documents the careers of the country music legends The Carter Family. Part of the American Experience series, this film utilizes archival footage, photographs that belonged to the descendants of the people documented, and narration by the Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall. Read More

American Experience: The Great War 1918

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This episode of WGBH Boston's globally-acclaimed American Experience series for PBS, entitled The Great War of 1918, uses archival footage and candid interviews with survivors of WWI to detail - in great horror - how the automatization of warfare virtually destroyed every romantic and poetic Read More

Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Russell Little, Mike Bortin, Timothy Findley, John Lester, Dan Grove

Synopsis: Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst is a documentary about the short-lived radical political group that caused a media frenzy in the early '70s. Filmmaker Robert Stone incorporates archival footage, news clips, and contemporary interviews with SLA founder Russ Little and member Mike Bortin. Most Read More

American Experience: RFK

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This documentary explores Robert Kennedy's life and his search for a purpose to devote it to both before and after his legendary brother's death. Sympathetic and tragic, the perspective of this program is that Robert Kennedy's true voice was suppressed over and over again until it was silenced Read More

They Made America [TV Documentary Series]

Crew: Executive Producer

Citizen King

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Part of the American Experience series on PBS, the biopic Citizen King commemorates what would have been the 75th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Directed by Orlando Bagwell and written by W. Noland Walker (the writing/directing team of Africans in America), this documentary explores the Read More

American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad

Crew: Producer

Actors: Michael Murphy

Synopsis: Documentary filmmakers offer a fascinating look at one of the most spectacular engineering feats of the 19th Century as the story of the Transcontinental Railroad comes to life in a film that's sure to appeal to historians and railroad enthusiasts alike. As legions of tireless workers toiled for Read More

American Experience: The Murder of Emmett Till

Crew: Senior Producer

Actors: Andre Braugher

Synopsis: In August 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth from Chicago, was visiting relatives near the town of Money, MS. Leaving a small grocery store, Emmett allegedly whistled at the white woman behind the counter. Though he didn't know it at the time, the teenager had broken a cardinal rule in Read More

The Fight

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Following up his 2000 Academy Award-nominated Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, documentary filmmaker Barak Goodman helmed this film, exploring boxing's heavyweight championship match of June 22, 1938. The match, between African-American Joe Louis and Nazi Germany's Max Schmeling, gained world-wide Read More

New York, Episode 8: 1945-2003 - The Center of the World

Crew: Series Producer

Actors: Bebe Neuwirth, George Plimpton

Synopsis: The three-hour documentary Center of the World is part of producer/director Ric Burns' massive 14 1/2-hour filmed history of New York City. More specifically, this film is an outgrowth of the five-minute coda to Burns' previous effort The City and the World: 1945 to Present, hastily added to Read More

American Experience: Seabiscuit

Crew: Producer

Actors: Laura Hillenbrand, Gene Smith, Norah Christianson, Jack Whitaker, Farrell Jones

Synopsis: Acknowledged as one of the greatest thoroughbred racehorses of the 1930s, Seabiscuit is the archetypal example of the extreme long shot who made good. Too squat, knobby-kneed, disheveled, and off-colored, the horse would have been written off as a total loss by anyone except the triumvirate of Read More

American Experience: Bataan Rescue

Crew: Senior Producer

Actors: Scott Glenn

Synopsis: This PBS documentary covers the daring 1945 commando raid to free 513 survivors of the 1942 Bataan death march in the Japanese-occupied Philippines. Penned up in the hellish Cabanatuan concentration camp for three years, the emaciated, disease-ridden prisoners (originally tens of thousands in Read More

American Experience: The Pill

Crew: Senior Producer

Actors: Blair Brown

Synopsis: This entry in the PBS documentary series American Experience traces the history of the birth control pill, from the moment of FDA approval in 1960 to the present day. The Pill also generously provides the backstory to its subject matter, detailing older and less reliable forms of contraception Read More

American Experience: A Brilliant Madness - The Story of John Nash

Crew: Director, Screenwriter, Senior Producer

Actors: Liev Schreiber

Synopsis: A Brilliant Madness chronicles the life of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John Nash. Born in Bluefield, WV, the eccentric Nash joined the prestigious math department at Princeton in the late '40s. In 1950, at the age of 21, he developed the Nash Equilibrium, a challenge to traditional game Read More

American Experience: War Letters - Stories of Courage, Longing and Sacrifice

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: One commonality that seems to link every modern war is that soldiers almost invariably write their families and loved ones on a regular basis and their correspondence covers a broad range of human emotions -- funny camp stories, reassurances to worried folks at home, confessions of fear, anxieties Read More

American Experience: Public Enemy #1

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: John Dillinger was a no-good bank robber in Indiana who captured the public imagination with his bravado and humor. Perhaps it was the Great Depression and the practices of many banks that made the populace root for the man who robbed banks and sent postcards saying "Wish You Were Here" to the Read More

American Experience: Mount Rushmore

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: Mount Rushmore narrates the story of the one of America's most beloved monuments and the artist who crafted it. Driven by ego and self-confidence, sculptor Gutzon Borglum made a reputation for himself by carving a bust of Lincoln that Teddy Roosevelt displayed in the White House. When offered a Read More

American Experience: The Great San Francisco Earthquake

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: In April of 1906, the grand and thriving city of San Francisco was host to luminaries including writer Jack London, world-class opera tenor Enrico Caruso, and movie star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. At 5:30 in the morning on April 18, one of the most disastrous earthquakes in U.S. history shook the Read More

American Experience: The Rockefellers

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Part one of American Experience: The Rockefellers chronicles the rise of John D. Rockefeller from the son of a gambler to the owner of Standard Oil. Born in 1839, Rockefeller gained his mother's prudent disposition, but learned about the value of money from his unreliable father, nicknamed "Devil Read More

American Experience: George Wallace - Settin' The Woods On Fire

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Randy Quaid

Synopsis: Daniel McCabe and Paul Steckler direct this scrupulously-balanced and exhaustively-researched documentary on reactionary Alabaman firebrand George Wallace. The film opens with the outset of Wallace's public career, when -- surprisingly -- he had a reputation of being progressive in regards to Read More

American Experience: The Wizard of Photography - The Story of George Eastman

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Judith Light, Peter Gallagher

Synopsis: This edition of The American Experience investigates the life and work of George Eastman, the man who brought cameras and photography into the lives of millions of Americans. Narrated by Judith Light, this video chronicles the fierce competition and often embarrassing failures Eastman had to Read More

American Experience: Lost in the Grand Canyon

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: John Wesley Powell was a Civil War veteran dedicated to surveying one of the last uncharted territories in the United States: the Grand Canyon. His expedition established the Grand Canyon as a national landmark and -- not without scrutiny -- changed the country's attitude toward the West. American Read More

American Experience: Race for the Superbomb

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: This two-hour documentary uncovers the U.S.-Soviet race to build the hydrogen bomb and describes the fear of destruction that ensued. More powerful than the atomic bomb, the hydrogen fusion (or "super") bomb was used as a political weapon during the Cold War. This documentary also shows the Read More

American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: Just days after Hollywood released The China Syndrome, a film about the possible meltdown of a nuclear power plant, life closely imitated art and a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility near Harrisburg, PA, suddenly overheated. Tension, panic, and fear embroiled the area for a Read More

American Experience: Rescue at Sea

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: David McCullough narrates this heroic story of Jack Binns, a courageous young man who attempts to save the lives of more than 1,500 people trapped aboard a sinking ship. Jack Binns learned the art of wire-tapping when he was only a boy and by the time he was 26 he was working for the White Star Read More

American Experience: Around the World in 72 Days

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Before there was a Helen Thomas, there was Nellie Bly. Known at "the best reporter in America" in 1890, Bly continuously took great risks to grab the headlines. During the day of the of stunt journalist, Bly had herself committed in order to expose the abuse of the mentally ill. Other guises Read More

American Experience: Truman

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, Harry Truman became the 33rd president of the United States. This video captures the exciting details surrounding Truman's later race for re-election against Dewey, along with many other important historical moments. Viewers are reminded Read More

American Experience: TR, The Story of Theodore Roosevelt

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Viewers will find a historical review of the lives of both Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt on these two tapes that constitute part two of this series on the American presidency. Teddy Roosevelt's long years of public service are noted prior to his becoming the President in 1901 when Read More

American Experience: Spy in the Sky - The Untold Story of America's U-2 Spy Plane

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Written, produced, and directed by Linda Garmon, this episode of the Emmy award-winning PBS series The American Experience chronicles the development of the CIA supersonic spy plane dubbed the U-2, and the international crisis triggered when American pilot Francis Gary Powers got shot down while Read More

American Experience: America and the Holocaust

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This edition of The American Experience chronicles a dark chapter of American history, the refusal of this nation to come to the aid of German Jews in the months and years before and during World War II. Hal Linden narrates this tale which uses the story of one German immigrant, Kurt Klein, to Read More

American Experience: The Donner Party

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: In 1846, a group of over eighty Westward-bound pioneers were headed to the coast of California from Illinois, which had itself only recently been brought up to "civilized" status. They made it to a pass high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California when they were halted by a truly monstrous Read More

American Experience: Last Stand at Little Big Horn

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This episode of The American Experience investigates an event that has become American folklore. By carefully considering the evidence available from both white and Native American accounts, the video reaches conclusions that are more complex than those commonly held. Custer emerges not as a fool Read More

American Experience: The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Originally telecast on the award-winning PBS series The American Experience, this documentary chronicles the formation and battlefield heroics of the first all-black Union regiment, the Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry. Early in the Civil War, most whites thought that blacks would never be able Read More

American Experience: LBJ - A Biography

Crew: Senior Producer

Synopsis: This film profiles the life and political career of the powerful United States senator from Texas Lyndon Baines Johnson, who became president of the United States when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The documentary considers this tragic figure in American history, whose social legislation Read More

American Experience: Nixon

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Will Lyman

Synopsis: Part of the American Experience series on the presidents, this three-hour documentary examines the quest, triumph, fall, and legacy of one of America's most fascinating and controversial presidents. From his modest beginnings among the lemon groves in Yorba Linda, CA, to his taking on the highest Read More

American Experience [TV Documentary Series]

Crew: Executive Producer

Vietnam: A Television History [TV Documentary Series]

Crew: Executive Producer