Nov 10, 2014 By Sarah Winshall

Barbara Kopple is a legend in documentary filmmaking. Her debut film, Harlan County USA (1976), made while she was still in school, won the Best Documentary Oscar. Kopple’s latest film, Running From Crazy, is an intimate documentary portrait of actress Mariel Hemingway as she fights back against her famous family’s long history of mental illness and suicide. Kopple intertwines family home video, an unfinished documentary by Mariel’s sister Margaux (who committed suicide in 1992), and contemporary footage of Mariel as she raises two teenaged daughters and participates in various suicide prevention activities. I had the chance to speak with Kopple about watching Mariel watch those home videos for the first time and how Ernest’s legacy impacts the Hemingway family. More