Phyllis Chinlund | |
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| Born | May 2, 1939 New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse | Ray Witlin (m. 1970;died 2002) |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1980) |
Phyllis Chinlund (born May 2, 1939) is an American former filmmaker, retired social worker, and memoirist. She worked on over twenty documentaries as a director and filmmaker and was a 1980 Guggenheim Fellow. She later worked as a geriatric social worker after moving to Maine, and wrote a memoir named Looking Back from the Gate (2016).
Phyllis Chinlund was born on May 2, 1939, in New York City, [1] and lived in Pittsburgh as a young child. [2] She obtained her BA from Smith College in 1961. [1]
In 1965, Chinlund got a master degree in documentary film from Stanford University, returned to New York City, and started her filmmaking career, [2] [1] eventually having at least twenty directing and editing credits to her name as a documentary filmmaker. [3] She won a CINE Golden Eagle for her film Robin, Peter and Darryl: Three to the Hospital (1968), a Christopher Columbus International Film Festival award for Two Worlds to Remember (1970), and a International Film & TV Festival of New York Silver Medal for It Began with Birds (1974). [1] Her film Good Girl aired on the WNET series Adolescent Rites on October 14, 1979. [4] She also did two 1980 episodes of Old Friends ... New Friends , specifically the ones featuring Willie Stargell and Orville Harrison. [5] [6]
In 1980, [7] Chinlund was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in filmmaking. [1] She was editor for Suzanne Bauman 's documentary film The Women of Summer. [8] In 1987, she appeared on the PBS documentary The Television Makers. [9]
Chinlund obtained her master degree in social work from the Silberman School of Social Work in 1989, and she began a career as a social worker, with her specialty being geriatric mental health. [10] [2] In 2013, she retired from social work. [3] In April 2016, she released a memoir, Looking Back from the Gate: A Story of Love, Art, and Dementia, inspired from a journal she wrote during her struggle with her husband's Alzheimer's disease. [2]
Chinlund married photographer and filmmaker Ray Witlin in 1970, after both divorced their previous respective spouses. [2] [11] They remained married until he died in 2002. [2] As of 2016, she lived in Cumberland Foreside, Maine, having moved to the state from Manhattan in 1998 due to rising housing costs in New York City. [2] [3]