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Bill Kavanagh (born March 27, 1957) is an American documentary filmmaker. His films include Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story, A Matter of Place, Capucine Bourcart, and Enemies of War.

Life and career
Kavanagh grew up in Westford, Massachusetts, graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, MA in 1975. He attended Connecticut College, graduating in 1980 with a major in History. Before he worked primarily in documentary, Kavanagh began his career in the theater, working as a stage manager at Circle Repertory Theater, Adelphi Festival Theater, Hartford Stage Company and other regional and Off-Broadway companies. Kavanagh also worked at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, as a cameraperson at the National Playwrights Conference on the New Drama for Television Project.

Kavanagh’s first feature documentary film, Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story, began when he moved to Yonkers, NY and encountered the reaction to housing and school desegregation ordered under a consent decree, pursuant to the findings in the US v. Yonkers antidiscrimination lawsuit. His film followed three families in the city over time and traced the local movement to fight school discrimination that began the complaint.

Brick by Brick first aired on WNET television in 2007 and was subsequently shown throughout the country on PBS stations and at film festivals.

Kavanagh signed on to production of Enemies of War (2001), a television documentary about human rights abuses in El Salvador and interviewed figures ranging from colleagues of the Jesuit priests murdered in 1989 by the Atlácatl Battalion of the Salvadoran Army to Congressman Joe Moakley, who headed up the Moakley Commission Congressional investigation into the murders, to candidates from the right and the left for the first democratic elections after the civil war.

Kavanagh’s third film, A Matter of Place (2013), was a short film on housing discrimination which featured Nikole Hannah-Jones and traced the history of housing segregation in the United States, focusing on three stories about discrimination cases in New York City. The film was co-produced by the Fair Housing Justice Center and executive producer Fred Freiberg.

Kavanagh’s short film, Capucine Bourcart, is a piece about the mixed media artist, who uses photography of urban surfaces in many of her pieces.

Kavanagh lives in New York City.

Selected filmography
Enemies of War (2001)

Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story (2007)

A Matter of Place (2013)

Capucine Bourcart (2020)