Matt Pacarella
- Producer
- Director
- Cinematographer
Matt Pascarella grew up as the son of a single-mom Sergeant in the US
Army before earning a scholarship to study in New York City, where his
career in journalism began at age nineteen.
While completing his degree in Political Science and Media Studies, Matt was hired by journalist Greg Palast to research and produce a series of investigative reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian newspaper in London.
Matt worked closely with Palast to develop what became key trademarks appearing in most of his televised investigations: typically, a top-secret document was almost always revealed; or a whistleblower would be interviewed in shadow; or there was a confrontation between Palast and a real-life "villain" who had become unmasked through the course of the investigation.
Their work packed a punch and made an impact.
After BBC Newsnight aired Palast's three-continent investigation of Vulture Funds, (which Matt researched and produced), Britain's Parliament banned these so-called "investors" from convincing UK courts to enforce illegitimate debts from the poorest nations of the world. Members of US Congress, including Maxine Waters and John Conyers drafted and submitted a bill (H.R. 2932) in response.
After an American Congresswoman watched Palast's investigation of systematic purging of African American voters from the voter rolls, and the non-count of millions of ballots cast in the previous election, she proclaimed-on Capitol Hill-that the election in which Bush had been declared victor had been a "United States coup d'état." Her words were stricken from the Congressional record and she was immediately censured by the House of Representatives.
Matt was also essential to creating and marketing Palast's several NY Times' best-selling books, including the second edition of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," "Armed Madhouse," and "Vultures' Picnic." In addition to directing Palast's tours, Matt came up with several highly-successful spin-off projects to cross-promote Palast's books by conceptualizing and producing what became chart-topping, spoken-word albums; decks of cards illustrated by Robert Grossman; audio books with contributions from Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, Janeane Garofalo, Jello Biafara and others; in addition to interactive storytelling projects and high-impact strategic partnerships.
Beyond his work with Palast, Matt also directed, produced and filmed several documentary projects by joining forces with visionaries such as Academy-Award nominee and community-media guru DeeDee Halleck, whom he partnered with on Channels of War, a film that analyzed the US media's coverage in the lead up to the war in Iraq, and was featured in the Official Selection of the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
Matt produced and filmed Welfare Rebel with Oscar nominee and Sundance Cinematography Award-winner, Richard Rowley of Big Noise Films. The profile, which aired on Al Jazeera, told the story of one of the most endangered activists in America, Cheri Honkala, a radical homeless organizer who trains families without homes to occupy federally-owned abandoned buildings.
Matt worked with the award-winning director of the film American Blackout, Ian Inaba, to provide behind-the-scenes coverage of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her staff as they drafted Articles of Impeachment against then President George W Bush and members of his administration, whom McKinney accused of crimes against the constitution, abuse of office and illegal domestic spying.
Matt's film Big Easy to Big Empty uncovered who was responsible for the failed evacuation plan for the City of New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina and was called "Extraordinary!" by ABC's Gil Noble. Other documentary-investigations Matt developed and/or produced include BP In Deep Water, Bush Family Fortunes, and Finding Bolivar's Heir - all of which have broadcast on major international networks.
He has also contributed to news reports and investigations that have broadcast on Al Jazeera, ARTE, Democracy Now!, BBC World News America, BBC World Service, Free Speech TV, Channel 4's Dispatches, Pacifica and other networks; as well as articles published in Harper's, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Progressive, The Indypendent, The Huffington Post, Monocle, The Nation, Hustler, Surface and others.
In addition to his investigative and documentary work, Matt was on the founding team and served as the Managing Editor of TAR magazine - a 304+ page arts, fashion and politics magazine based in a loft in New York's SoHo neighborhood and printed on a single-sheet fed press in Verona, Italy. Matt oversaw all aspects of creating and delivering editions that featured original contributions from Tilda Swinton, Christiane Amanpour, Steve McQueen, David Cronenberg, John Pilger, Damien Hirst, Jonathan Lethem, Jurgen Teller, Tadao Ando, Julian Schnabel, Mitchell Joachim, Terry Richardson and many other artists, writers and thinkers of our day. The New York Times called TAR "A thinking man's magazine" and Time placed it's second issue's cover by Damien Hirst among its' top 5 magazine covers of that year. TAR continues to thrive and is now run by the Grafiche-SIZ group in Milan, Italy.
After TAR, Matt's interest in exploring new approaches to foreign reporting led him to serve as the US Bureau Chief of Demotix, an experiment in crowd sourcing breaking international news that quickly became a global newswire with over 30,000 contributors in 212 territories who provide hundreds of newspapers and networks daily, on-the-ground reporting of places, people and events these news companies simply could not cover, let alone access otherwise. Demotix won the MediaGuardian Innovation Award, the British Airways Young Business Award, and a Webby, in addition to being nominated for awards from the likes of South By Southwest Interactive, the Mashable Open Web Awards, the Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism and the Good Web Guide's Website of the year. Demotix continues to thrive and was recently acquired by Corbis.
In 2010, Matt began helping to develop and execute creative media strategies for the launch of several high-profile economic justice campaigns. They were imaginative movement-building campaigns like Rebuild the Dream, which brought together over 130,000 people to create crowd-sourced creative solutions to the economic crisis and to protect and expand the middle class in America. Rebuild quickly grew to over 600,000 members and has become a major progressive voice in Washington D.C.
Following Rebuild, Matt worked closely with the 99% Spring campaign, a diverse coalition of economic justice groups, labor unions, environmental groups and community organizations that came together and trained over 65,000 people across America in non-violent civil disobedience. Matt led the team that developed and produced all of the visual media, films and audio used to train attendees at hundreds of trainings that took place in 49 states, as well as online.
During the 2012 Presidential Election cycle, Matt directed the Video The Vote project, which recruited, trained and dispatched thousands of volunteers across the country to monitor their polling places by shooting video on Election Day. It was the first time an elections oversight project created a central virtual newsroom to track, curate and dispatch citizen journalists covering irregularities at their polling places using smart phones and uploading their stories to social media using a designated hash tag.
From Portland to Porto Alegre, Matt has lectured at over thirty universities, professional and academic conferences, concerts and film premieres - on topics ranging from labor and globalization, political communication, citizen journalism, media ecology and voter disenfranchisement in America.
What drives all of Matt's work is an insatiable desire to tell others' stories and to constantly be working, and experimenting, and trying to figure out how to share those stories with audiences who will take on the important issues of our day and impact change.
He has lived in New York City, has worked throughout Latin America, Cuba, the US and Europe, and is based in Venice, California.
While completing his degree in Political Science and Media Studies, Matt was hired by journalist Greg Palast to research and produce a series of investigative reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian newspaper in London.
Matt worked closely with Palast to develop what became key trademarks appearing in most of his televised investigations: typically, a top-secret document was almost always revealed; or a whistleblower would be interviewed in shadow; or there was a confrontation between Palast and a real-life "villain" who had become unmasked through the course of the investigation.
Their work packed a punch and made an impact.
After BBC Newsnight aired Palast's three-continent investigation of Vulture Funds, (which Matt researched and produced), Britain's Parliament banned these so-called "investors" from convincing UK courts to enforce illegitimate debts from the poorest nations of the world. Members of US Congress, including Maxine Waters and John Conyers drafted and submitted a bill (H.R. 2932) in response.
After an American Congresswoman watched Palast's investigation of systematic purging of African American voters from the voter rolls, and the non-count of millions of ballots cast in the previous election, she proclaimed-on Capitol Hill-that the election in which Bush had been declared victor had been a "United States coup d'état." Her words were stricken from the Congressional record and she was immediately censured by the House of Representatives.
Matt was also essential to creating and marketing Palast's several NY Times' best-selling books, including the second edition of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," "Armed Madhouse," and "Vultures' Picnic." In addition to directing Palast's tours, Matt came up with several highly-successful spin-off projects to cross-promote Palast's books by conceptualizing and producing what became chart-topping, spoken-word albums; decks of cards illustrated by Robert Grossman; audio books with contributions from Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, Janeane Garofalo, Jello Biafara and others; in addition to interactive storytelling projects and high-impact strategic partnerships.
Beyond his work with Palast, Matt also directed, produced and filmed several documentary projects by joining forces with visionaries such as Academy-Award nominee and community-media guru DeeDee Halleck, whom he partnered with on Channels of War, a film that analyzed the US media's coverage in the lead up to the war in Iraq, and was featured in the Official Selection of the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
Matt produced and filmed Welfare Rebel with Oscar nominee and Sundance Cinematography Award-winner, Richard Rowley of Big Noise Films. The profile, which aired on Al Jazeera, told the story of one of the most endangered activists in America, Cheri Honkala, a radical homeless organizer who trains families without homes to occupy federally-owned abandoned buildings.
Matt worked with the award-winning director of the film American Blackout, Ian Inaba, to provide behind-the-scenes coverage of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her staff as they drafted Articles of Impeachment against then President George W Bush and members of his administration, whom McKinney accused of crimes against the constitution, abuse of office and illegal domestic spying.
Matt's film Big Easy to Big Empty uncovered who was responsible for the failed evacuation plan for the City of New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina and was called "Extraordinary!" by ABC's Gil Noble. Other documentary-investigations Matt developed and/or produced include BP In Deep Water, Bush Family Fortunes, and Finding Bolivar's Heir - all of which have broadcast on major international networks.
He has also contributed to news reports and investigations that have broadcast on Al Jazeera, ARTE, Democracy Now!, BBC World News America, BBC World Service, Free Speech TV, Channel 4's Dispatches, Pacifica and other networks; as well as articles published in Harper's, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Progressive, The Indypendent, The Huffington Post, Monocle, The Nation, Hustler, Surface and others.
In addition to his investigative and documentary work, Matt was on the founding team and served as the Managing Editor of TAR magazine - a 304+ page arts, fashion and politics magazine based in a loft in New York's SoHo neighborhood and printed on a single-sheet fed press in Verona, Italy. Matt oversaw all aspects of creating and delivering editions that featured original contributions from Tilda Swinton, Christiane Amanpour, Steve McQueen, David Cronenberg, John Pilger, Damien Hirst, Jonathan Lethem, Jurgen Teller, Tadao Ando, Julian Schnabel, Mitchell Joachim, Terry Richardson and many other artists, writers and thinkers of our day. The New York Times called TAR "A thinking man's magazine" and Time placed it's second issue's cover by Damien Hirst among its' top 5 magazine covers of that year. TAR continues to thrive and is now run by the Grafiche-SIZ group in Milan, Italy.
After TAR, Matt's interest in exploring new approaches to foreign reporting led him to serve as the US Bureau Chief of Demotix, an experiment in crowd sourcing breaking international news that quickly became a global newswire with over 30,000 contributors in 212 territories who provide hundreds of newspapers and networks daily, on-the-ground reporting of places, people and events these news companies simply could not cover, let alone access otherwise. Demotix won the MediaGuardian Innovation Award, the British Airways Young Business Award, and a Webby, in addition to being nominated for awards from the likes of South By Southwest Interactive, the Mashable Open Web Awards, the Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism and the Good Web Guide's Website of the year. Demotix continues to thrive and was recently acquired by Corbis.
In 2010, Matt began helping to develop and execute creative media strategies for the launch of several high-profile economic justice campaigns. They were imaginative movement-building campaigns like Rebuild the Dream, which brought together over 130,000 people to create crowd-sourced creative solutions to the economic crisis and to protect and expand the middle class in America. Rebuild quickly grew to over 600,000 members and has become a major progressive voice in Washington D.C.
Following Rebuild, Matt worked closely with the 99% Spring campaign, a diverse coalition of economic justice groups, labor unions, environmental groups and community organizations that came together and trained over 65,000 people across America in non-violent civil disobedience. Matt led the team that developed and produced all of the visual media, films and audio used to train attendees at hundreds of trainings that took place in 49 states, as well as online.
During the 2012 Presidential Election cycle, Matt directed the Video The Vote project, which recruited, trained and dispatched thousands of volunteers across the country to monitor their polling places by shooting video on Election Day. It was the first time an elections oversight project created a central virtual newsroom to track, curate and dispatch citizen journalists covering irregularities at their polling places using smart phones and uploading their stories to social media using a designated hash tag.
From Portland to Porto Alegre, Matt has lectured at over thirty universities, professional and academic conferences, concerts and film premieres - on topics ranging from labor and globalization, political communication, citizen journalism, media ecology and voter disenfranchisement in America.
What drives all of Matt's work is an insatiable desire to tell others' stories and to constantly be working, and experimenting, and trying to figure out how to share those stories with audiences who will take on the important issues of our day and impact change.
He has lived in New York City, has worked throughout Latin America, Cuba, the US and Europe, and is based in Venice, California.