Biography

Johnny Symons is a documentary filmmaker focusing on LGBT cultural and political issues. He is a professor in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University, where he runs the documentary program and is the director and co-founder of the Queer Cinema Project. He received his BA from Brown University and his MA in documentary production from Stanford University. He has served as a Fellow in the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program.His latest film, Out Run, co-directed with award-winning filmmaker S. Leo Chiang, premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and won Best Cinematography for a Feature Length Documentary Film at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. His documentary Daddy & Papa, about the personal, cultural, and political impact of gay men raising children, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens, and was nominated for a national Emmy for Best Documentary. Ask Not, his award-winning feature-length documentary about the impact of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the US military, also aired on Independent Lens. Beyond Conception, a feature documentary about the relationship between a lesbian surrogate and a gay male couple, broadcast on Discovery Channel. Symons was co-producer of Long Night's Journey Into Day, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.