Cynthia Hill (director)

She is most famous for creating, directing, and producing the television show A Chef's Life (2013–2018), as well as the documentary films Private Violence (2014), “The Guestworker” (2006), and “Tobacco Money Feeds My Family” (2003).

[3] After briefly living in Los Angeles, Hill moved to New York, working for four years as an editor at GLC productions.

[2] In 2006, she and Charlie Thompson, professor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, collaborated to make the film “The Guestworker” about migrant farmworkers in North Carolina.

Said Hill, “Vivian and I grew up together in rural eastern North Carolina, and we created A Chef's Life to focus on food traditions in our hometowns and her farm-to-table restaurant in Kinston, N.C. A lot of it is about her relationship to the local purveyors of the ingredients she uses, so again, the viewer glimpses a world that not many people are privy to, or even think about.”[6] A Chef's Life aired nationally on PBS from 2013-2018, including five seasons and two specials.

In 2014, Hill produced and directed Private Violence, a film following the story of two domestic abuse survivors, Deanna Walters and Kit Gruelle.

Road to Race Day (executive produced by Peter Berg) premiered on Sony's Crackle in July 2020 and debuted on Verizon's go90 in 2017.

In 2020, Hill produced and directed "Somewhere South", another PBS series starring North Carolina chef Vivian Howard.

[8] In 2022, Hill directed the Future of Transportation, a short film about Amazon's race to electrify its delivery fleet with the American electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian.

[9][10] Filmed over the course of seven years, the series follows Stephen Pandos as he begins a search for the truth about his sister Jennifer, who disappeared at the age of 15 in 1987.

In addition to filmmaking, Hill also lectures at the Continuing Education program at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.