Eddie Rosenstein

Edward "Eddie" Rosenstein is an American documentary filmmaker and President of Eyepop Productions, an independent film and television production company in Brooklyn, NY. 

Rosenstein was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, and graduated from Penn State with a BFA in Film.

Rosenstein is the president of Eyepop Productions, a documentary film and reality TV production company founded in 1995 and based in Brooklyn, New York. Rosenstein's first internationally acclaimed film was A Tickle In The Heart (Co-producer), which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was theatrically released worldwide in 1996. His next feature-length documentary, The Gospel According to Mr. Allen (producer/director) told the story of an embattled drug rehab in Harlem. It won the Audience Award at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, where it premiered in 2000. The Gospel According to Mr. Allen was later broadcast on A&E under the title, Rehab: Tough Love in Harlem. Between 2004 and 2007, Rosenstein co-directed Waging a Living for PBS's POV with Roger Weisberg. This documentary followed four families for three years as they tried to raise themselves out of poverty. In 2005, Rosenstein filmed the 16mm black-and-white footage from Mark Cohen's perspective for the feature film RENT. Rosenstein was chosen to shoot this footage because Jonathan Larson, the author of the musical RENT, was one of Rosenstein's best friends and collaborators. Rosenstein is commonly seen as the basis for the character Mark Cohen, the documentary filmmaker character in RENT.

In 2008, Rosenstein and Rick Velleu co-directed the independent documentary feature film, School Play. School Play was released on DVD in 2010 and on VOD in late 2011. Rosenstein's short films include Two Weddings (1999) which ran on Starz! and was included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in NY; segments of HBO's Real Sex; and Boatlift, narrated by Tom Hanks, which was shown at the U.S. National 9/11 Ten Year Anniversary event in Washington, DC in 2011.

Regarded specifically for his immersive approach to documentary filmmaking, Rosenstein once spent 6 months living in a Florida senior citizen community to film A Tickle in the Heart; he spent a year at Harlem rehab center for The Gospel According to Mr Allen; and he became a union miner and spent 3 months working in the tunnels under New York City in order to learn the trade of the Sandhogs. Rosenstein's time in the tunnels led to the production of his documentary film, The Greatest Tunnel Ever Built, which he produced and directed for HISTORY. The Greatest Tunnel Ever Built was released in 2008 and became the basis for the eleven-hour docu-series Sandhogs, which also ran on HISTORY. Sandhogs was Executive Produced by Rosenstein for Eyepop Productions, along with Craig Piligian and Eddie Barbini for Pilgrim Films & Television, in Los Angeles. 

Rosenstein has since Executive Produced the reality TV pilots Surveillance City for truTV, and Missing and Endangered for A&E. He Executive Produced the TV series How the States Got their Shapes and Chasing Tail both for the History Channel.

His latest film The Freedom to Marry, is a feature-length documentary film about the same-sex marriage movement.

Rosenstein has been a documentary film and non-fiction television professor at the New York Film Academy since 2008.

Documentaries

• The Greatest Tunnel Ever Built (2008)
• School Play (2008)
• Autobiography (2005)
• The Gospel According to Mr. Allen (2000)
• A Tickle in the Heart (1996)

Television

• Sandhogs TV Series (2008)
• P.O.V, Waging a Living (2006)
• The AMC Project: Reality People (2003)
• Real Sex (1992)

Short Films

• Boatlift (2011)
• Rebuild (2011)
• Miss Shade is Missing (2010)
• Two Weddings (1999)
• Greatest Tunnel Ever Built
• School Play
• Autobiography: Dennis Hopper
• The Gospel According to Mr. Allen
• Sandhogs
• Waging A Living
• Reality People
• Real Sex
• Boatlift
• Rebuild
• Miss Shade is Missing
• Two Weddings