Greta Schiller

Greta Schiller
Born1954 (age 69–70)
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation(s)Director, producer, editor, cinematographer
Years active1978–present
Known for
  • Before Stonewall
  • Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women
  • Paris Was a Woman
  • The Man Who Drove with Mandela
PartnerAndrea Weiss
Websitejezebelproductions.org

Greta Schiller is an American film director and producer, best known for the 1984 documentary Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community and the 1995 documentary Paris Was a Woman.[1][2]

Career[edit]

Her 1976 film Greta's Girls is, following Barbara Hammer, one of the first independent short films to focus on lesbians.[3]

She had a part directing the 1981 documentary Greetings from Washington, D.C. which details the first important LGBT march for gay rights, held in 1979.[3]

In 1984, Schiller directed Before Stonewall,[3] which won two Emmy awards.[citation needed] The film combines interviews with multiple forms of media that shows the history of gays and lesbians during the early 20th century to the late 1960s.[4] Before Stonewall was the first gay or lesbian film to be funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.[5]

In 1985, Schiller and Andrea Weiss founded Jezebel Productions, a nonprofit women's film production company based in New York City. Schiller and Weiss were strongly influenced by both the New Left movement and the women's and gay liberation movements of the 1970s.[5]

Schiller and Weiss subsequently collaborated on International Sweethearts of Rhythm (1986), about African American women musicians performing in the 1930s to 1940s; Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin' Women (1988), and Paris Was a Woman (1996).[3][6][7][8] Paris Was a Woman, about creative lesbians in 1920s Paris, was a labor of love for the two filmmakers, taking 5 years to produce and breaking house records.[5] In 2023, Schiller and Weiss co-directed The Five Demands.

Schiller directed Maxine Sullivan: Love to Be In Love (1990),[9] Woman of the Wolf (1994), The Man Who Drove With Mandela (1998), I Live At Ground Zero (2002),[9] and The Marion Lake Story: Defeating the Mighty Phragmite (2014). She produced and directed No Dinosaurs in Heaven (2010), about the problem of creationists infiltrating science education.[citation needed][10][11] In 2020, she directed The Land of Azaba, the first feature documentary on the subject of ecological restoration. Set in one of the world's first "hot spots" for increasing and maintaining bio-diversity, Campanarios de Azaba Nature Reserve in Western Spain, the film premiered in the Valladolid International Film Festival and won "Best Cinematography" in the Mystic Film Festival.

Reception[edit]

The Advocate said that Greta Schiller is "gifted".[clarification needed]

Time Out New York wrote that Paris Was a Woman might cause viewers to "want to leave their spouse and move to Paris.[12]

The author of Black Popular Culture included a picture from the film Maxine Sullivan: Love to Be In Love on the first page of the book.[13]

The Atlantic Journal wrote that International Sweethearts of Rhythm "makes you glad documentaries were invented."[9]

Awards and nominations[edit]

Greta Schiller has won numerous awards over her career. Before Stonewall earned her an award at the Torino Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, as well as a Grand Jury Nomination at the Sundance Film Festival.[citation needed]

Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women earned Schiller a Teddy at the Berlin International Film Festival.[citation needed] She won another Teddy in 1999 for Best Documentary for The Man Who Drove with Mandela.[citation needed][10] The film also won Best Documentary at the Milan International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Newport International Film Festival in Rhode Island.[14]

In 2019, Schiller's film Before Stonewall was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[15]

Filmography[edit]

  • Greta's Girls (1978)
  • Greetings from Washington, D.C. (1981)
  • Before Stonewall (1984)
  • International Sweethearts of Rhythm (1986)
  • Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women (1989)
  • Maxine Sullivan: Love to Be In Love (1990)
  • Woman of the Wolf (1994)
  • Paris Was a Woman (1996)
  • The Man Who Drove with Mandela (1998)
  • Seed of Sarah (1998)
  • Escape To Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story (2000) (directed by Andrea Weiss)
  • I Live at Ground Zero (2002)
  • U.N. Fever (2008)
  • No Dinosaurs in Heaven (2010)
  • The Marion Lake Story: Defeating the Mighty Phragmite (2014)
  • Bones of Contention (2017)
  • The Land of Azaba (2020)
  • The Five Demands (2023)[16]

Personal life[edit]

Schiller received the US/UK Fulbright Arts Fellowship in Film and grants from multiple organisations.[9] She is openly lesbian.[12]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Greta Schiller". AllMovie. n.d. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  2. ^ "Paris Was a Woman". Jezebel Productions. 2013. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d Haggerty, George; Bonnie Zimmerman (2000). Encyclopedia of lesbian and gay histories and cultures, Volume 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 243. ISBN 978-0-8153-3354-8. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  4. ^ Piontek, Thomas (2006). Queering gay and lesbian studies. University of Illinois Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-252-07280-2. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  5. ^ a b c "Jezebel Productions, About". Retrieved May 7, 2012.
  6. ^ Van Gelder, Lawrence (November 8, 1996). "Smart, Free And Female In Paris". The New York Times. p. Section C, 4. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
  7. ^ Levy, Emanuel (July 6, 2019). "Paris Was a Woman (1996): Schiller's Docu of Lesbian Writers". Emanuel Levy Cinema 24/7. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
  8. ^ "Paris Was a Woman". Queer Documentaries. Archived from the original on May 3, 2020. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
  9. ^ a b c d "Greta Schiller, Director". Jezebel Productions. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  10. ^ a b "Jezebel Productions".
  11. ^ "Greta Schiller, New Day Films".
  12. ^ a b Mark J. Huisman (1996). "City of lesbian fight/In Profile". The Advocate. Here Publishing: 64. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  13. ^ Wallace, Michele; Gina Dent (1998). Black Popular Culture. The New Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-56584-459-9. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  14. ^ Greta Schiller's IMDb Awards page
  15. ^ Chow, Andrew R. (December 11, 2019). "See the 25 New Additions to the National Film Registry, From Purple Rain to Clerks". Time. New York, NY. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  16. ^ Shaffer, Claire (July 13, 2023). "'The Five Demands' Review: Occupying a College for Racial Justice". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 16, 2023.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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