Max Shores is a thirty-year veteran of TV and documentary film production. His work has been featured on Alabama Public Television, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, PBS stations nationwide, and the University of Alabama’s TV stations, WVUA and WUOA.
Recent awards include the Best Feature Documentary Award from the 2011 Prometheus Film Festival, 2009 Accolade TV Feature Documentary Award of Merit, Honorable Mention – Documentary Short from the 2009 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival, Honorable Mention – Music Documentary from the 2009 Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, Best Alabama Film and Best Professional Documentary from the 2007 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival, Best of Show and First Place Documentary from the 2007 Macon Film Festival, and Second Place Feature Documentary from the 2006 Tupelo Film Festival.
His work has also been screened at the Memphis International Film Festival, Crossroads Film Festival, Rome International Film Festival, Real to Reel Film Festival, Southern Fried Flicks Film Festival, Secret City Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival, Appalachian Film Festival, Indie Grits Film Festival, Treasure Coast International Film Festival, SouthSide Film Festival, New York City Food Film Festival, International Film Festival of England, the Globians Documentary Film and World Culture Festival of Germany, and the Woodford Folk Festival of Australia.
Shores is a Winfield, Alabama native and a graduate of the University of Alabama. He is a product of the University’s College of Communication and Information Sciences and has been training students in documentary production both in the field and as adjunct faculty in the Telecommunication & Film Department since receiving a Masters degree in 1984.
Through his research for The Amazing Story of Kudzu, Shores is considered one of the world’s leading scholars on the kudzu vine. He traced the 1540 route of Spanish conquistador Hernando Desoto across the southeastern U.S. for In Search of Desoto’s Trail and documented the history of what was once called the “wickedest city in America” in Up from the Ashes: the Phenix City Story. In The Chief: Calvin McGhee and the Forgotten Creeks he told the sad, yet triumphant story of a Native American group left behind in Alabama when others were forcibly removed to Oklahoma in the 1830s.
Shores is currently developing a new TV series for WVUA/WUOA and working with Mississippi Public Broadcasting as the director of the Sucarnochee Revue TV series. He also teaches TCF 145, Introduction to Media Production at the University of Alabama.
Shores and his wife Cindy have three daughters – Katie, Mary and Myra.
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