Justin Hunt began his career in journalism while in high school in Bloomfield, New Mexico. As a senior, Hunt was given the United States Journalism Association's award for the best high school ne ...Show More
Justin Hunt began his career in journalism while in high school in Bloomfield, New Mexico. As a senior, Hunt was given the United States Journalism Association's award for the best high school newspaper story in the nation. From there, after a short stint in print journalism, his focus turned to broadcasting.In 1995, he began an internship with KOBF TV in Farmington, New Mexico. At 18, he was made the weekend anchor and one of the youngest news anchors in NBC history. After graduating from college, he returned to KOBF. In 2000, he was transferred to Roswell, New Mexico, and KOBR, where at 23 years old, he was made the youngest news director in the country.Over the next four years, Hunt would win more than 40 Associated Press and New Mexico Broadcaster's Awards, including the prestigious "News Reporter of the Year Award', three times.In 2004, he left television after establishing his production company, Time & Tide Productions. Over the next few years, Hunt created hundreds of video productions, most notably 'Dream Home Drive', a real estate program that aired statewide in New Mexico on CBS.In 2007, he finished American Meth, a now cult-classic documentary dealing with the epidemic of meth in our country. The film is narrated by Val Kilmer and won numerous film festivals around the country, including the Cinema City International Film Festival at Universal Studios. In 2008, the movie was released on DVD and was one of the most rented documentaries of the year. In 2009, it hit cable networks in the U.S. and Canada. And, in 2010, American Meth was picked up by Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Cable networks, where it was exposed to over 98 million households via video on demand. In October of 2011, American Meth peaked at #11 on iTunes 'Top Documentaries' list and currently listed as the third most popular documentary of all time on hulu.com. In the fall of 2008, Justin was sent to Washington D.C. by then New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as part of a 10 person team to attend a national meth conference. In June of 2011, Hunt was presented with the 'National Media Award' by The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) and The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), for his work on American Meth. The previous winner of that award was the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. It has been viewed over 500,000 times on YouTube.His second film, Absent, a documentary about the impact of disengaged fathers, further expanded Justin's appeal to audiences around the world. It includes interviews with people ranging from prostitutes and inner city high school kids to world champion boxer Johnny Tapia, Christian author John Eldredge and James Hetfield, front man for the heavy metal band Metallica. Hunt's interview with Hetfield, one of the most recognizable figures in rock and roll history, has been called the 'greatest Hetfield interview ever captured on film, and the new bar for every METALLICA interview from here on out'. The movie has been accepted to 17 festivals in six countries, including South Africa, Egypt, Spain, Germany and England, and the 26th Boston Film Festival, which takes only 40 feature films out of over 1200 submissions. Hunt and Hetfield were featured on the national FOX morning program 'Fox and Friends' in March, 2011. The film has won 'Best Documentary' at the Marbella Int'l Film Festival in Spain, 'Best Documentary' at the Thanet Int'l Film Festival in England, and was one of three finalists for 'Best Documentary' at the Radar Hamburg Film Festival in Germany. It was awarded 'Best Documentary' at both the TriMedia Film Festival in Ft. Collins, Colorado and the Southern Winds Film Festival in Shawnee, Oklahoma. In July of 2012, Absent was the opening night film of the Northwest Ohio Film Festival, where Justin received their inaugural 'Director's Choice Award.'On December 31, 2011, Justin was named by the Arizona Republic as one of the Ten People Who Most Impacted Their Community (Gilbert, AZ), which has a population of over 250,000.In June of 2013, Absent went on a multi-city screening tour of Australia, with Justin attending 19 screenings in a 16 day period. On June 26th, 2013, Justin was asked to speak at the Australian Parliament in regards to the film and the issue of fatherlessness around the globe. With an average audience size of over 300 during the tour, one parliamentarian called Absent and the tour "..the most significant movement towards fatherhood in Australian history." The film now has distribution in over 60 countries and is available in four languages (English, Spanish, French & Russian), with more languages planned in the near future.In September of 2013, his third feature-length documentary, The Speed of Orange, was released on DVD. A more personal film, it covers a nearly 70 year span of his horse-racing family, the Hall of Fame GHL racing stable, a staple in horse racing from the 1960s through the early 1980s. The film has won every festival it's been in, including the 'Rising Spirit Award' for Most Inspirational film at the Jerome Film Festival. The film also garnered the 'Choice City Award' for Best Feature Documentary at the TriMedia Film Festival, making Justin the only three-time winner at that festival ('07, '10, '13) and the 'Best Documentary' Award at the Marbella International Film Festival in Spain, making him the only two-time winner n the history of that festival ('10, '13). The Speed of Orange was released via video on demand in the U.S. in April of 2014. In the summer of 2014, shooting wrapped on his first feature length narrative film, Far Too Far, a meth related drama. The film hit limited AMC theaters in April of 2015 and, during its first two weeks, was the #5 movie in America in per screen average.His fourth feature length documentary, Cardboard Butterfly: The Human Struggle with Porn, is in post production and should be completed in late 2015.Justin lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his two children, a 14 year old son and 12 year old daughter. Hide
