PBS Announces Broadcast Premiere Of "AMERICAN MASTERS 'PEARL JAM TWENTY'" Airing Friday, October 21, 9 P.M. ET/PT

Oscar-Winner Cameron Crowe's Documentary Part of First-Ever PBS Arts Fall Festival

PBS announced  that Cameron Crowe's "Pearl Jam Twenty," from the award-winning AMERICAN MASTERS series, will join the first-ever PBS Arts Fall Festival, a multi-platform event, featuring nine programs with a range of artists and performances from around the country, inviting every American into the world of music, theater, dance, art and cultural history.

Carved from more than 1,200 hours of rarely and never-before-seen footage, plus 24 hours of recently shot interview and live footage, AMERICAN MASTERS "Pearl Jam Twenty" is the definitive portrait of Pearl Jam as told by award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe. The film's broadcast premiere is Friday, October 21, 2011, 9 p.m. ET/PT on PBS and coincides with Pearl Jam's yearlong celebration of its 20th anniversary. PBS member station KCTS Seattle is creating a mini-documentary about today's Seattle arts scene to coincide with the broadcast.

"Pearl Jam is a groundbreaking band, and Cameron Crowe is an amazing filmmaker. I'm thrilled that this remarkable documentary will be a part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival," said PBS President and CEO Paula A. Kerger. "AMERICAN MASTERS 'Pearl Jam Twenty' joins eight other new broadcasts of classic and contemporary programs showcasing the range of the arts in America."  

"We are delighted to be presenting Pearl Jam's 20th on AMERICAN MASTERS 25th - a truly perfect anniversary celebration! We continue the tradition of matching world-class filmmakers with subjects like this band, who revolutionized our culture with their music and their exemplary social consciousness," says Susan Lacy, series creator and executive producer of AMERICAN MASTERS, a seven-time winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. The series is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET. More information will be available at www.pbs.org/americanmasters.