Rustin Thompson

Rustin Thompson is an independent filmmaker with more than 30 years-experience as a broadcast journalist, director, cinematographer, editor, and writer. He has earned several Emmy and photojournalism awards and his documentaries have won numerous awards at film festivals nationwide. Rustin also curates documentary films for the Rainier Arts Center and is the host of the popular KBCS, 91.3FM Americana radio program, Road Songs.

Rustin Thompson will receive 2016 GAP funding for My Mother Was Here, which is an intimate, honest, first-person account of his struggle to move his lonely 84-year old mother from her home of 60 years into a senior living facility. He not only calculates the physical, cognitive and financial challenges of the change his mother faces, but he also explores the heartbreaking story of how she dealt with a lifetime of unexpected losses. In telling her personal story through this film, he is telling the universal story of this final phase of life, and the decisions we all will someday face.