Julie Gustafson

Born in 1949, Julie Gustafson studied at Brandeis University before she began producing video documentaries on women's issues in the early '70s. She was co-director with John Reilly of Global Village, a major center for video documentary in New York. Gustafson collaborated with Reilly on a number of award-winning video documentaries for public television, works that scrutinized American society and offered trenchant analysis of political and social issues, such as Giving Birth (1976) and The Pursuit of Happiness (1983). Gustafson's first tape, The Politics of Intimacy (1974), was a feminist landmark because of its frank discussion on women's sexuality. Her later work combined a sensitive vérité camera style with a polished literary narrative structure.
An educator, as well as an artist and curator, Gustafson taught for many years at The New School for Social Research in New York City. She was a member of the graduate and undergraduate faculties of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, both in Philadelphia. Currently, she is an Artist in Residence at the University of New Orleans, Film, Theatre, and Communication Arts Department. (09/09)

Desire
A film by Julie Gustafson and Teenage Girls' Documentary Project, 2005, 85 min., Color
Nearly a decade in the making, this refreshingly honest film documents the challenges and desires of a group of young women in New Orleans by letting ...