Marcia Jarmel

Marcia Jarmel has been producing and directing films that raise questions about complex social issues for the past 15 years. She is currently producing "Speaking in Tongues", an hour-long documentary about a community exploring the value of being bilingual. She is best known for co-producing and directing "Born in the U.S.A.", a critical look at maternity care in the U.S. that was funded by ITVS and aired on Independent Lens (2000). Six years after its broadcast, the film is still widely used by women's health advocates and educators and recently was entered as evidence in the Nebraska state hearings on midwifery laws.

Her most recent project, "Collateral Damage", is a mother's lament about the human costs of war that screened as part of Underground Zero: Filmmakers respond to 9/11 at theatres, museums, festivals and schools around the world. She wrote, directed, and produced "The Tricycle Solution: Teachable Moments for Parents and Preschoolers, about a visionary early childhood educator. Her previous film, "The Return of Sarah's Daughters", looked at the allure of traditional religion to secular young women drawn to Orthodox Judaism. Currently used in hundreds of classrooms and community centers around the world, it screened on public television and at the American Cinematheque, The International Documentary Film Festival, Women in the Director's Chair, Cinequest and numerous international film festivals. It won a CINE Golden Eagle, a National Educational Media Network Gold Apple, and 1st Place in the Jewish Video Competition.

Her first film, THE F-WORD: A SHORT VIDEO ABOUT FEMINISM uses whimsical animation and interviews to open up discussion on this contentious idea. It screened on KQED's "Living Room Festival," at AFI's VideoFest, and at the Judy Chicago film series at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Other credits include co-editing the Academy award nominee, "For Better or For Worse", and assistant producing the Academy nominees "Berkley in the Sixties" and "Freedom on my Mind".

The F-Word
A film by Marcia Jarmel and Erin Gallagher, 1994, 10 min., Color
THE F-WORD is a provocative look at the power of the word 'feminism' in the US. Why does it mean so many different things to different people? Pithy...