Rory Kennedy

Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy was born on December 12, 1968, at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. She is the youngest child of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. Her father was a former United States Attorney General, a U.S. Senator, and a presidential candidate in 1968. Rory Kennedy was born six months after her father was assassinated. Her mother chose her name "Rory" after Rory O'Connor, the last high king of Ireland who ruled in the 12th century.

On December 19, 1968, a week after her birth, her mother took her to Arlington National Cemetery to visit Robert F. Kennedy's grave. Her older brother Michael LeMoyne Kennedy was designated as her godparent by their mother. In December 1997, Rory Kennedy assisted in resuscitating her brother Michael following a fatal skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado. Rory and Michael maintained close contact, speaking almost daily according to friends of the Kennedy family.

During her teenage years, Rory Kennedy was involved in activism, including being arrested during a protest outside the South African Embassy. She experienced personal loss when her brother David Kennedy died from a drug overdose at the age of 28.

Kennedy attended Madeira School in McLean, Virginia, and later graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. During her time at Brown, she demonstrated activism by organizing a protest to support migrant farm workers, urging supermarket shoppers to boycott grapes.

In her professional career, Rory Kennedy is recognized as a documentary filmmaker focusing on social issues. In the 1990s, she co-founded May Day Media, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to producing socially conscious films. Her debut documentary was "Women of Substance" (1994), inspired by a paper she wrote on female addicts while at Brown.

In 1998, Kennedy co-founded Moxie Firecracker Films with Liz Garbus, a company specializing in documentaries on pressing social topics. Her notable works include "American Hollow" (1999), which depicts an Appalachian family's struggles and received critical acclaim; "Pandemic: Facing AIDS" (2003), an Emmy Award-nominated series about AIDS outside the Western world; "A Boy's Life" (2004), about a rural Mississippi family; and "Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable" (2004), examining potential nuclear accident scenarios at the Indian Point Energy Center near New York City.

Kennedy directed and produced several other documentaries, including "Homestead Strike" (2006); "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" (2007), which won a Primetime Emmy Award; "Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House" (2008); "The Fence" (2010), about the U.S.-Mexico border; and "Ethel" (2011), a documentary about her mother.

Her work also includes "Last Days in Vietnam" (2014), which documents efforts to evacuate Vietnamese refugees at the end of the Vietnam War. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Throughout her career, Kennedy has collaborated with various production companies and has spoken at film festivals and academic institutions.

In addition to her filmmaking, Rory Kennedy is involved in activism and supports numerous non-profit organizations. She has covered topics such as addiction, nuclear energy risks, and U.S. military history, and has been a speaker at events like the Manitoba Film Master Series.

In 2024, she directed and produced "The Synanon Fix," a documentary series about the Synanon organization for HBO, and announced her upcoming project, "The Trial of Alec Baldwin," scheduled to premiere in 2025 at DOC NYC.