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FEATURED: OCTAVIA SPENCER and VIOLA DAVIS win AWFJ 2011 EDA Awards for their performances in The Help. Read more...
Jennifer Merin interviews directors, reviews films and DVDs for New York Press, covers nonfiction film for Documentaries.About.com and is the Film Critic for Womens eNews. She edits Women On Film, the online magazine of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, of which she is President. She has written about entertainment for USA Today, US Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Endless Vacation Magazine, Daily News, New York Post, SoHo News and other publications. After receiving her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts (Grad Acting), Jennifer performed at the O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference, Long Wharf Theater, American Place Theatre and LaMamma, where she worked with renown Japanese director, Shuji Terayama. She subsequently joined Terayama's theater company in Tokyo, where she also acted in films. Her journalism career began when she was asked to write about Terayama for The Drama Review. She became a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor after writing an article about Marketta Kimbrell's Theater For The Forgotten, with which she was performing at the time. She was an O'Neill Theater Center National Critics' Institute Fellow, and the institute's Coordinator. While teaching at the Universities of Wisconsin and Rhode Island, she wrote "A Directory of Festivals of Theater, Dance and Folklore Around the World," published by the International Theater Institute. Denmark's Odin Teatret's director, Eugenio Barba, wrote his manifesto in the form of a letter to "Dear Jennifer Merin," which has been published around the world, in languages as diverse as Farsi and Romanian. Jennifer's culturally-oriented travel column began in the LA Times in 1984, then moved to The Associated Press, LA Times Syndicate, Tribune Media, Creators Syndicate and (currently) Arcamax Publishing. She's been news writer/editor for ABC Radio Networks, on-air reporter for NBC, CBS Radio and, currently, for Westwood One's America In the Morning. Read Merin's recent articles below. For her complete archive, type "Jennifer Merin" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).
UNRAVELED tracks the Marc Drier fraud case and chronicles period during which Drier, under house arrest with 24/7 armed guards watching him in his more than 10-million dollar penthouse on New York City’s Upper East Side, awaits the court appearance at which he will be sentenced for his crimes. Fascinating. Read more>>
British filmmaker Grant Gee visits the places mentioned in renowned author W.G. Sebald’s “The Rings of Saturn,” capuring the writers stream of consciousness style with a fascinating montage of photos and footage, readings from the book and commentaries about its meaning and importance. A tantaizing documentary. Read more>>.
First time director Bess Kargman’s documentary follows six talented, dedicated and appealing tween and teenage ballet dancers in their grueling preparations for the Youth America Grand Prix, an international competition that rewards the winners with coveted scholarships to top ballet training programs or jobs with professional ballet companies. Read more>>
Larry Weinstein’s heartbreaking documentary follows Fumiko Ishioka, a curator at the Tokyo Holocaust Resource Center, as she seeks to discover the story of the owner of a battered suitcase — a holocaust relic — that had been sent from Auschwitz to Tokyo to be put on display at the museum. Read more>>.
Using Margaret Atwood’s fascinating treatise entitled “Payback: Debt And The Shadow Side of Wealth” as a point of departure, acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal engages a compelling cast of renown commentators to expound on the notion of debt and its wide range of implications about human civilization and its future. Read more>>
In “Payback,” Margaret Atwood, one of the greatest writers of our time, has abandoned fiction to look at a topic that’s as loaded and emotional as any love affair - debt and revenge. The book gets the documentary treatment in a film by the same name. Atwood, who appears in the film, comments on the subject and on being the inspiration for a documentary. Read more>>
Filmmaker Julia Haslett was so moved by a quote of Simone Weil’s that she spent the next six years studying the French philosopher and making a film about her life and writings. Read more>>
In this mesmerizing art documentary, filmmaker Corinna Belz focuses on the intensely personal artistic process of famed German abstract painter Gerhard Richter. Read more>>
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, an internationally acclaimed director of narrative features, makes this not-a-film to show what his life has been like since he was arrested in July, 2009, charged with planning to make a film against the ruling regime, and prohibited from making movies for 20 years. Read more>>
Filmmaker Marie Losier’s first feature documents the singular relationship between musician and performance artist Genesis P’Orridge (nee Neil Andrew Megson in 1950) and his wife and creative partner Lady Jaye (nee Jacqueline Breyer). Read more>>