Jacob Young (born 1952) is an American screenwriter, cinematographer, film editor, and filmmaker best known for creating documentary films that explore eccentric people living in his native Appalachia.
[1][2][3] Young was a producer at WNPB-TV in Morgantown, West Virginia, when he conceived Appalachian Junkumentary (1986), a film eventually purchased by over 90 PBS stations and winning a 1988 PBS Special Achievement Award.
[4][5] Young was also producer for two seasons of the documentary series Different Drummer, broadcast by the BBC and Public TV.
[6] In 1998 Young revealed that he was considering creating a feature film using Dancing Outlaw star Jesco White.
[7][8] Oxford American referred to Young's film Dancing Outlaw as "now-legendary", and wrote that it was "one of the most bizarre, upsetting, and ultimately, when looked at from a certain angle, inspiring documentaries to have emerged from the South, or from anywhere, in recent memory.