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Women Directors are Shortlisted for 2007 Doc Oscar

Jennifer Merin
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Of the fifteen feature length documentaries on the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences shortlist for 2007 Oscars consideration, four are directed or co-directed by women.

In support of women’s achievements in film, The Alliance of Women Film Journalists wishes to congratulate:

  • Tricia Regan for Autism: The Musical, an uplifting film shoing the transformative power of theater in the lives of autistic children and their parents.
  • Ellen Spiro (and Phil Donahue) for The Body of War, introducing us to Thomas Young, an American soldier who returned from Iraq as a paraplegic.
  • Bonni Cohen, Nicole Nernham (and Bruce Berge) for The Rape of Europa, about the plundering of Europe’s art treasures by Nazis during the Second World War, and the ongoing efforts to return missing masterpieces to their rightful owners.
  • Andrea Nix Fine (and Sean Fine) for War/Dance, an inspiring film in which school children living in a displaced persons camp in rural Uganda travel to Kampala to compete in their country’s national song competition.

The Academy’s shortlist also includes Michael Moore’s Sicko, Alex Gibney’s Taxi To the Dark Side and Steven Okazaki’s White Light/Black Rain, among others.

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Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin is the Film Critic for Womens eNews and contributes the CINEMA CITIZEN blog for and is managing editor for Women on Film, the online magazine of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, of which she is President. She has served as a regular critic and film-related interviewer for The New York Press and About.com. She has written about entertainment for USA Today, The L.A. Times, 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 then became 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. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association in the Film, Documentary and TV branches and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. For her AWFJ archive, type "Jennifer Merin" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).