Biographies

Jennifer Dworkin - Director/Producer
Love & Diane is Jennifer Dworkin's first film. Jennifer was born in New York but grew up in England, returning to the United States for college. She has an MA and is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at Cornell University but is currently on leave. Her research was on the subject of conscious access and self-knowledge. She is the recipient of several research fellowships and was awarded the 1997 Fellowship for Excellence in Research and Academic Promise in the Cognitive Sciences from Cornell University. Jennifer Dworkin has known some members of the family portrayed in Love & Diane since 1989, when she taught photography workshops for children in NYC Tier II shelter system. These workshops grew into a program teaching kids still photography and filmmaking with Super 8 cameras. She has worked extensively as a volunteer and group leader for several children's charities. Jennifer learned filmmaking in the course of making this documentary over many years.

Mona Davis - Editor
Mona Davis, winner of Best Editor Emmy for The Farm, multiple award winning documentary on the notorious prison in Angola, Louisiana, has been editing documentaries since the early 1980s, when she doubled as Editor and Associate Producer of her first film, In Our Water, a study of the pollution problem in New Jersey's water supply. In Our Water, produced and directed by Meg Switzgable, won a Columbia DuPont Award and was nominated for both an Academy Award and an Emmy.

The Farm, distributed theatrically and also seen on the A & E Network, was nominated for an Academy Award and was a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner in addition to being voted Best Documentary of the Year by the New York Film Critics' Circle, the L. A. Film Critics' Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Ms. Davis, a native New Yorker, is a graduate of the NYU film school and has edited many highly honored documentaries. Some of the most distinguished are: A Perfect Candidate, a revealing portrait of Oliver North using footage from his senatorial campaign against Robb. (Nominated for an Emmy. Producer-Directors, R.J.Cutler and David Van Taylor. Associate Director, Mona Davis.) Dream Deceivers, about the trial of a rock star whose Satanic flavored recordings allegedly motivated a teen fan to commit suicide. (Nominated for an Emmy. Shown at the Berlin Film Festival. Winner: International Documentary Association Award, PBS Best of the West Award, CPB Gold Award. Producer/Director, David Van Taylor). Mona also edited Age 7 In America, the American version of the British documentary series, Seven Up, which interviews a group of subjects at seven year intervals, starting at age seven.(Winner: Peabody Award. Producers: Michael Apted & Vicky Bippart. Director: Phil Joanou.)

Jennifer Fox - Executive Producer
In 1980, Jennifer formed her own production company, Zohe Film Productions. She produced, wrote and directed two narrative shorts, entitled Pomello: One Day And A Boy (1980), and The First Illusion (1981). She worked as an Assistant Producer and Writer for the nationally syndicated television program, PM Magazine and on the production of several shorts for WNET's Sesame Street.

She produced, directed and wrote the internationally acclaimed, award-winning feature documentary, Beirut: The Last Home Movie. Beirut was released theatrically in seven countries and televised in seventeen countries worldwide, including an American broadcast as a Frontline Special in 1991. Invited to over twenty of the most prestigious documentary film festivals world-wide, it won seven international awards, including Best Film of the Year and Best Cinematography, Sundance Film Festival, United States (1989), Grand Prize Best Film, Cinema Du Reel, Paris, France (1989), The Young Forum Selection, Berlin Film Festival, Germany (1989), and Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Film Festival, United States (1989).

In 1989, Jennifer was hired as a director and cinematographer to spend a year and a half videotaping the world tour of the Tibetan Buddhist Lama, Namkhai Norbu Rimpoche. She recorded over sixty hours of videotape, covering thirteen countries, including a two-week visit with Namkhai Norbu's close friend and Nobel Prize Laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The footage is currently part of an extensive Buddhist archive in Archidoso, Italy.

Jennifer has recently completed the groundbreaking ten-hour documentary series, An American Love Story, which she produced, directed, and photographed for Public Television, and which aired nationally on PBS September 12-16, 1999. An American Love Story has been screened to critical acclaim at the 1999 Sundance, Berlin, and Edinburgh Film Festivals (as well as others), and at the Film Forum in New York City. The series has also aired in Israel, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Jennifer's other credits include Executive Producing On The Ropes, a feature-length documentary produced, directed, and photographed by Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen. At its premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, On The Ropes was awarded a Special Jury Award. It went on to win the Best Feature Documentary of the Year award at the IDA 1999, Best Documentary at Urban World Film Festival 1999, the Golden Gate Award in San Francisco 1999, and an honorable mention at the Amsterdam Documentary Festival 1999. The film is funded by Fox Lorber and TLC and has been released theatrically in fifty markets. It was broadcast in April of 2000 on The Learning Channel. Jennifer is the Executive Producer of Portrait Of A Survivor As An Artist, Kit-Yin Snyder's feature-length documentary that explores the personal journey of a traditional Chinese artist in the modern world. She is also Executive Producing, Absolutely Safe, a feature length investigative film about breast implants by Carol Ciancutti.

Jennifer has lectured about documentary filmmaking in numerous festivals and universities in both Europe and America. She has also given Master Classes on documentary filmmaking around the globe. She was sent by the United States Information Service to give seminars on independent filmmaking in Pakistan and India. She has consulted on numerous documentary film projects in all phases of production and distribution. Jennifer is currently teaching filmmaking at New York University's School of Film and Television and Film Video Arts in New York. She previously taught at The School of Visual Arts for two years. She has recently completed the feature length screenplay, Lila: A Fairy Tale. She is one of three filmmakers featured in the film, The Heck With Hollywood!, a portrait of the trials and tribulations of independent filmmaking in America. She is also featured in the new film about the history of the verite movement called, Cinema Verite, Defining The Moment by Peter Wintonic.

Tsuyoshi Kimoto - Cinematographer
Born in Osaka, Japan, Tsuyoshi Kimoto has spent the last fifteen years in the United States, including eight years of cinematography studies. For four years he trained under veteran PBS documentary film producer/director Marian Marzynski. His documentary feature credits include several films produced and directed by Marian Marzynski: Gomrowitcz Story, Escape from Japan and Anya In and Out of Focus. He shot Halsted Street, U.S.A., directed by Sundance Film Festival Award winner David Simpson, as well as Go Monk Go produced by Gus Van Sant, directed by Chris Moniux. Tsuyoshi won a Student Oscar and Emmy Award for Arn Chorn Pond, a Cambodian in America which he produced, directed and photographed. As well as his feature credits,Tsuyoshi has extensive television, music video and educational credits.