Vanguard Documentaries
PO Box 26635
Brooklyn, NY 11202
347-725-1677
charleshobson@yahoo.com

Vanguard Documentaries is a film development and production company specializing in arts, cultural affairs, and political documentaries. For more than 25 years Vanguard has worked as producer and co-producer with many of the leading broadcast outlets in North America and Europe.

Charles Hobson is founder and artistic head of Vanguard, whose distinguished career spans four decades and who has worked extensively with PBS and the BBC. Charles is winner of an Emmy Award, the Japan Prize 'Special Citation,' and the CINE Golden Eagle Award; has been ranked one of the fifty top producers in the film and television industry by Millimeter magazine; and was a Fulbright Scholar (Germany) in 1996. Among his many credits are From Jumpstreet: A Story of Black Music (a 13-part PBS series), The Africans (a 9-part series co-produced with the BBC), the Emmy Award-winning television series Like It Is (WABC-TV), Global Links (a 6-part series on international development, co-produced with the World Bank for PBS), and Spaces (a 6-part science series, funded by the Department of Education).

Charles Hobson
Executive Producer

In the News
December, 2011— The Flatiron will begin production in early 2012 The documentary, based on Alice Sparberg Alexiou's book, will be presented on national PBS by WNET/ Thirteen in time to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the building. Visit Flatiron Film for details.

October 1, 2010 — ARTE France to broadcast Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story
by Dante J. James and Olivier Simonnet
Monday, 20 December 2010 at 10.15 pm (Paris time)
Coproduction: Thirteen, Vanguard Documentaries, Idéale Audience, ARTE France, ITVS, SF

April 29, 2010 — Harlem in Montmartre: a Paris Jazz Story wins Best Documentary prize at the 7th International Pan-African Festival at Cannes
The film — a co-production with Great Performances, Thirteen/WNET (New York), Ideale Audience International (Paris) and the Independent Television Service (ITVS) — was honored to play at the festival, which showed over fifty narrative and documentary films, and was juried by a panel of international filmmakers, journalists, writers, and professors.
Visit PBS for film details.

February 6, 2010 — Charles Hobson honored by McDonald’s Corporation as a Black Media Legend
Irving Street and McDonald’s have honored Charles Hobson as one of their 18 esteemed Black Media Legends. Among the other honorees were: Roz Abrams, James Brown, Ken Singleton, and Robin Roberts. Photos of all 18 honorees were printed on posters and displayed in the 650 McDonald’s restaurants in the New York Metro region.

July/August 2010 — Charles Hobson taught a summer workshop on documentary filmmaking at the Arts Workshop International in Assisi, Italy.