Biography
Joan Churchill is an American cinematographer and filmmaker. She began her career in the late 1960s and early 1970s shooting vérité documentaries and music films such as Gimme Shelter (1970) and Punishment Park (1971). She attended UCLA, where she took a summer filmmaking class that led her into the industry.
Churchill has collaborated extensively with director Nick Broomfield, her former husband, on films including Soldier Girls (1981), which she co-directed and shot, Lily Tomlin (1986) and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003), on which she served as both cinematographer and co-director. Other credits include Kurt & Courtney (1998), Biggie & Tupac (2002) and Last Days in Vietnam (2014).
In 2005 she became the first pure documentary cinematographer inducted into the American Society of Cinematographers. Her work has earned a BAFTA award, among other honours.
