Betsy West and Julie Cohen, who directed RBG, the feature-length documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reacted Friday to Ginsburg’s death Friday at age 87.
“Like so many Americans, we are crushed by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” West and Cohen said in a joint statement. “Even had she not become a Supreme Court Justice, Ginsburg earned a place in history for what she did to win equality for American women. When we asked her several years ago how she wanted to be remembered, she said with characteristic modesty, ‘Just as someone who did whatever she could, with whatever limited talent she had, to move society along in the direction I would like it to be for my children and grandchildren.’ ”
RBG was a buzzed title already before it world premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where Ginsburg was treated like a rock star when she landed in Park City for the debut.
The film, which was acquired at the festival by Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media, went on to gross $14.4 million at the global box office and earned a pair of Oscars noms (for Feature Documentary and Diane Warren’s Original Song “I’ll Fight”) as well as shared an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking after it aired on CNN.