High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Donn Alan "D. A." Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects. Pennebaker was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Lucille Levick and John Paul Pennebaker, who was a commercial photographer. In the early 1960s Pennebaker, together with Richard Leacock and Robert Drew, founded Drew Associates. In 1963 Leacock and Pennebaker left to found their own production firm. Later he often worked with his wife, Chris Hegedus. Their company, Pennebaker Hegedus Films, has made a number of influential documentaries