Eric Temple has been producing award-winning documentaries and non-fiction media since 1982. He has won five regional Emmy Awards, sixteen Telly Awards, and recognition from prestigious film festivals worldwide. While working as a producer and environmental reporter at the PBS station in Phoenix, he produced two documentaries on critical issues affecting the Navajo Nation. One of these films, Uranium: The Navajo Legacy, was the first-ever documentary to bring to light the issue of radioactive contamination from uranium mining on the Navajo reservation. A second documentary on poverty on the Navajo reservation was a companion film that highlighted a broad range of economic issues affecting the tribe. Both of these films were aired nationally on PBS in 1983. The years between 1984 and 1991 were spent producing a nightly magazine program (Evening/PM Magazine) that aired on Group W television stations nationwide.

 

In 1992, Temple produced and directed the independent documentary Edward Abbey: A Voice in the Wilderness. This biography of the late environmental author was shown on PBS and in multiple film festivals, including the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, and the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, DC. It also won Best Documentary and Best of Show at the 1994 Utah Film & Video Festival and is still popular after over three decades. 

 

Also in the 1990s, Temple co-directed and served as a cinematographer on the multiple award-winning documentary The Mystery of Chaco Canyon with archeoastronomer and filmmaker Anna Sofaer. The film, narrated by Robert Redford, became a popular program on PBS. It examined the connection between ceremonial buildings made by the ancient Anasazi in New Mexico over a thousand years ago, and the alignment of key structures with significant astronomical events.

 

With One Voice is a spiritual documentary on mysticism that Temple directed, photographed, and edited in 2009. Narrated by Peter Coyoye, it won numerous awards and is distributed worldwide by Kino Lorber. It can currently be seen on Amazon Prime Video.

 

Throughout the 2000s, Temple produced musical documentaries and electronic press kits for Grammy nominated singer-songwriter Gretchen Peters (Woman on the Wheel) and also several short films for the prolific singer-songwriter Tom Russell (Hearts on the Line, Don’t Look Down, & California Bloodlines.) These films were distributed on DVD by the artists and by their record labels (HighTone Records, Shout Factory.)

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In between these longer films, Temple has produced thirty five short documentary films highlighting the inductees of the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame at the Aerospace Heritage Museum of Utah. These films are seen on kiosks at the museum and on the museum's website. 

 

Temple recently completed production on a documentary short called A Taste of Bournonville, focusing on famed Danish ballet instructor and former dancer Dinna Bjørn, who has come to Utah for over seven years to teach local dancers the Bournonville Method, a difficult ballet style dating back to the 19th century. 

 

Most recently, Temple was hired to direct Life in the Comics, a two hour PBS documentary being produced in cooperation with Maryland Public Television. This film examines social themes in America and the role that comic strips played in driving social change and acceptance.

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