Margaret Byrne received her BFA in film at UIC in 2000.
She is founder of Beti Films (betifilms.com) and Creative Vision Films(creativevisionfilms.com). Margaret was a Creative Director at Universal Music and directed live concerts and music videos for artists such as Jay-Z and Mary J Blige. She produced and edited the television series that launched MTV across Africa in 2005. She was a cinematographer and an editor for American Promise (2013), a thirteen-year feature film following the education of two African American boys from New York City. The film won the 2013 Sundance Special Jury Prize and 2013 Full Frame Documentary Jury Award. This film will premiere on PBS in February 2014. Margaret is director and producer of feature documentary Raising Bertie and recently received a prestigious MacArthur grant. Raising Bertie is a co-production with Kartemquin Films following the lives of three young men after their alternative school is forced to close in rural North Carolina. She's also a Motion Picture Television Professor at the College of DuPage. “In the stories I tell, I hope to bring forward the essence of life in both it’s triumphs and struggles, “ Byrne said about her current work, “because they’re interrelated and in documentary, the most remarkable part is the relationships you make because you have been granted a unique license to witness who they are.”
