EDUCATION
M.A./Ph.D., History, Rutgers University, 1991
B.A., English/Women’s Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1977.
FILM CREDITS
U.N. FEVER (2008). Producer/Director/Editor.
Feature length observational documentary following three teams of college students
as they prepare to compete in an international Model U.N. conference.
RECALL FLORIDA (2003). Writer/Producer/Editor.
Feature length documentary “road movie” following Janet Reno’s campaign for Governor of Florida.
I LIVE AT GROUND ZERO (2002). Producer/Editor.
Half-hour documentary providing a young girl’s eye-view of 9/11.
ESCAPE TO LIFE: THE ERIKA AND KLAUS MANN STORY (2001). Writer/Director/ Editor. Feature-length documentary/drama, for theatrical release, based on the lives and work of anti-Nazi writers and performers Erika and Klaus Mann, eldest children of Thomas Mann. World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival. American Premiere: Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
SEED OF SARAH (1998). Producer/Director/Editor.
Half-hour experimental documentary film of a contemporary opera, based on the Hungarian Holocaust memoir Seed of Sarah by Judith Magyar Isaacson. Produced in association with the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada. Premiere: Marseilles Documentary Film Festival.
A BIT OF SCARLET (1996). Writer/Director/Editor.
Feature-length archive based essay film on homosexuality in British cinema, produced by the British Film Institute. Theatrically released in the U.K., followed by U.K. and German television broadcasts. Premiere: Edinburgh International Film Festival.
PARIS WAS A WOMAN (1995). Writer/Producer.
Feature-length documentary based on my eponymous book on the female Modernists in Paris between the Wars. Theatrical release in the U.K., Spain, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Broadcast in Holland, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark. Premiere: London Film Festival.
TINY & RUBY: HELL DIVIN’ WOMEN (1988). Producer/Director.
Film portrait of two female jazz musicians from the 1930s through the 1970s; a sequel to INTERNATIONAL SWEETHEARTS OF RHYTHM. Broadcast in the U.K, Germany, Holland, and France. Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival.
INTERNATIONAL SWEETHEARTS OF RHYTHM (1986). Producer/Director.
A documentary film of the multi-racial, all-female jazz band of the big band era. Broadcast over national PBS and in Britain, France, Holland, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Zimbabwe. Premiere: New York Film Festival. Recently re-released on DVD in the U.S. and Germany.
BEFORE STONEWALL (1985). Research Director.
Groundbreaking documentary on American gay and lesbian life “in the closet” prior to the contemporary gay liberation movement. Theatrical release in the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany, Australia. Broadcast over national PBS and in Britain, Japan, and China. Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival.
BOOKS
In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Flucht ins Leben: Die Erika und Klaus Mann Story, Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 2001. Also published as Flykt till Livet: Berättelsen om Erika och Klaus Mann. Stockholm: Svenska Förlaget, 2001.
Paris Was a Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996 and London: Harper Collins, 1996). Translated as Paris était une femme (Paris: Anatolia Editions, 1996), Paris War Eine Frau (Dortmund: Edition Ebersbach, 1996 and Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1998, now it its fifth printing), and into Japanese (Tokyo: Pandora, 1996), Croatian (Zagreb: Aora Publishing, 2008) and Korean (Seoul: Edition W, 2008). Reissued in 2013 by Counterpoint Press.
Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema (London: Jonathan Cape/Random House, 1992). U.S. edition: Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film ( New York: Penguin, 1993). Translated into German (Dortmund: EfEf Verlag, 1995).
Before Stonewall, co-authored with Greta Schiller. (Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press, 1987).
TEACHING
Professor, Film/Video Program, Dept. of Media and Communication Arts, The City College of New York, 2003-present.
HONORS AND AWARDS
US/Spain Fulbright Scholar Award, 2015.
Distinguished Alumni Award in the Humanities, Rutgers University, 2010.
Judge, Publishing Triangle Nonfiction Book Awards, 2010.
Recipient, Publishing Triangle Award for Best Nonfiction Book (for In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain), 2009.
National Endowment for the Humanities, independent scholar fellowship for In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story.
New York State Council on the Arts, individual artist grant.
Banff Centre for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship.
Nipkow Fellowship in Film, Berlin.
D.A.A.D. (German Academic Exchange Service) Artist Program, Filmmaker Fellowship in Berlin.
National Endowment for the Arts, individual artist fellowship.
New York Foundation for the Arts, fellowship in film.
New York State Council on the Arts, individual artist grant.
EMMY Awards for Before Stonewall, Best Research and Best Historical Program.
Film prints of my work are included in the collections of the New York Public Library, Museum of Modern Art, British Film Institute, Yale University, Brown University, Columbia University, National Film and Television School of Great Britain and Forum des images: La mémoire audiovisuelle de Paris.
My personal papers and research documents pertaining to the production of my films and books are held in the Sophia Smith Collection of Smith College.
Master film elements for my films are held in the film archives of The Museum of Modern Art, the British Film Institute, and the UCLA Film Archive.
