One of the Greatest Documentary Filmmakers of All Time; Multiple Emmy Award Winner, Oscar Nominee, Television Academy Hall of Fame Honoree
Ken Burns is one of the most influential and celebrated documentary filmmakers of our time, with nearly five decades of work that has shaped how audiences understand American history. His award-winning storytelling—across landmark films like The Civil War, The Vietnam War, and The U.S. and the Holocaust—offers audiences a powerful lens into the past that resonates deeply in the present. As a keynote speaker, Ken brings unparalleled insight, cultural relevance, and a masterful command of narrative that captivates and educates diverse audiences. For event planners seeking a speaker who can inspire reflection and spark meaningful conversation, Ken Burns is a transformative choice.
Penn State University: Ken Burns delivers keynote address at commencement ceremony
Ken Burns On His New Documentary
In this engaging and thought-provoking keynote and Q&A experience, legendary filmmaker Ken Burns shares insights from nearly 50 years of chronicling American history. Through unforgettable stories behind his acclaimed documentaries—from The Civil War to The American Buffalo—Burns explores how history shapes our present and future. Audiences will experience a rare and intimate look into his creative process, the power of storytelling, and the timeless lessons that emerge from our shared past.
This powerful, moving speech digs deep into the history and meaning of country music: its greatest stars and the words and music that touch on universal human experiences.
Burns tries to make sense of the most important and most consequential event in American History since World War II. Here competing viewpoints and perspectives are balanced to give us a chance to finally come to terms with this important conflict.
A detailed and intimate look at three hugely influential, but deeply flawed and wounded people, who are Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt—their lives, but also their times.
Burns discusses the great gift of our national parks. Here both “the immensity and the intimacy of time” merge, as we appreciate what the parks have added to our collective and individual spirit.
Ken Burns reminds the audience of the timeless lessons of history, and the enduring greatness and importance of the United States in the course of human events. Incorporating The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz, Burns engages and celebrates what we share in common.
Drawing on some of Lincoln’s most stirring words as inspiration, this speech engages the paradox of war by following the powerful themes in two of Ken Burns’s best known works–“The Civil War”, his epic retelling of the most important event in American history, and “The War”, his intensely moving story of WWII told through the experiences of so-called ordinary people from four geographically distributed American towns.
The Civil War continues to be the most important event in American history. In this eloquent address, Burns paints both an intimate and bird’s-eye view of the searing events of the years 1861 through 1865 and the war’s profound relevance to us today.
This speech combines the biographies of some of Ken’s most fascinating subjects. He shares how biography works, and gives insight into the storytelling process. Various combinations of historical figures available: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, Frank Lloyd Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain, the Roosevelts (Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor), and Jackie Robinson.
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost fifty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust; The American Buffalo; and, most recently, Leonardo da Vinci.
Future film projects include The American Revolution, Emancipation to Exodus, and LBJ & the Great Society, among others.
Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In November of 2022, Ken was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
A Ken Burns presentation is like giving your audience a once-in-a-lifetime gift… something they'll never forget.
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