About

Biography

For more than 3 decades I have been a documentary filmmaker, educator, and artist. I was born in the Bronx, NY and raised in Levittown, LI, Queens, NY, Union City, NJ, and New York City.

As a student at Friends World College in Mexico, I was introduced to the Mexican Muralist movement’s rich political and visual language. I then spent 5 months hitchhiking in Central and South America ending up in Cuba where I studied with the renown Cuban documentary filmmaker, Santiago Alverez .  These two experiences have had an everlasting impact on my development as an artist and filmmaker.

When I returned to New York City in 19__ I joined the Newsreel Film Collective, a production and distribution company founded in 1967 in response to the political turmoil that surrounded the Vietnam war, Civil Rights and Women’s Movements. It was during this time that I made my first film, MY COUNTRY OCCUPIED with Heather (Archibald) Lewis.

My day job was an assembly-line worker at Maxwell House Coffee in Hoboken, NJ.  During this time, I was accepted into the federally funded Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) program, which employed 10,000 artists across the United States to work in non-profit organizations. As a CETA artist I was hired by Downtown Community Television Center in NYC to teach and make films.  It was here that I produced  Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Labor Struggle in the Post Office with Erik Lewis and Dan Gordon.  Since then, I’ve produced many critically acclaimed documentary films that have consistently been at the forefront of social issues looking at racism, police violence, women’s rights, conditions for workers and labor organizing, violence, and discrimination against LGBT people. 

My films include: Every Mother’s Son; Juggling Gender: Politics, Sex and Identity; Out At Work: Lesbian And Gay Men On The Job; Another Brother; Passionate Politics: The Life and Work of Charlotte Bunch; RFK In The Land of Apartheid: A Ripple Of Hope; Puzzles: When hate Came to Town; Making A Killing.  

Over the years I have been the recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Fulbright Fellowships; Tribeca Audience Award; GLAAD Media Award; Urban Visionaries Award, Museum of Television and Radio; NY/NJ Video Arts Fellowships; Excellence in the Arts Award from the Manhattan Borough President; AFI Independent Filmmakers Production Fellowship. Some of my films have been presented at MOMA, the Whitney, The Chicago Arts Institute, The Kennedy Center, the American and British Film Institutes, Sundance, Tribeca, The New York Film Festival, Slamdance and in over 150 film festivals worldwide. 

In 1988 I was invited to join the faculty at Hunter College CUNY where I developed the video production curriculum, LGBTQ Media Studies and led student exchanges to Cuba and South Africa, and have been directing the James Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism.