Edward Ralph Pincus (July 6, 1938 – November 5, 2013) studied philosophy and photography at Harvard,[1] and began filmmaking in 1964, developing a direct cinema approach to social and political problems.
A companion short film, Panola (1965–69), presented a portrait of a local Black man who may be a police informant, describing the ups and downs of his life as he tries to make sense of violence and non-violence during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement in the South.
One Step Away (1967), commissioned by Public Broadcasting Lab, charts the dissolution of a hippie commune during the Summer of Love in San Francisco.
"[1] Diaries: 1971-1976 (1981), about marriage, career, friends and family during the sexual revolution, was a seminal film in defining the possibilities of what came to be called "personal documentary".
Le Monde, in a front-page review, called Diaries "an epic work that redefines an art, forcing us to rethink what we thought we knew about the Cinema.
Ed summarized this as "the distillation of a sixty-day road trip to document what happened to a country displaced, and the role of the filmmakers who bear witness.
It premiered at Full Frame Independent Film Festival in April 2014 and received a theatrical release in Summer 2015 in select cities.