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Roberta Grossman (born January 7, 1959) is an American filmmaker. Her documentaries range from social justice inquiries to historical subjects with a focus on Jewish history. [1]
Grossman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in History and earned her MA in Producing from the American Film Institute Center for Advanced Film Studies in Los Angeles. [2] She considered obtaining a PhD and embarking on an academic career, but regarded making documentaries as a more effective way to convey history and engage with historical subjects. [3]
She released her first film in 1983, a biography of blues singer-songwriter Sippie Wallace called Sippie. The film was co-directed with Michelle Paymar. [4]
In 1995, Grossman produced and co-wrote Jack Leustig’s 500 Nations , an 8-hour CBS mini-series on the history of Native Americans. Executive producers were Jim Wilson and Kevin Costner. [5] [6] [7] In the following years, she created several more historical documentaries for TV, including In the Footsteps of Jesus for The History Channel, The History of Sex and Rock and Roll for VH1, Special Report: Las Vegas for MSNBC, Christianity: The First 1000 Years, Mysteries of the Bible: Judas, Heroines of the Hebrew Bible for A&E and Women on Top for AMC.
In 1999, Grossman founded the non-profit production company Katahdin Productions together with Lisa Thomas. [8] Katahdin released its first feature film in 2005, Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action. Music from the movie, "Sacred Ground: A Tribute to Mother Earth" won the 2005 Grammy for Best Native American Album. [9] [ better source needed ]
In 2008, Katahdin released Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh. [10] The film was produced by Marta Kauffman, written by Sophie Sartain and directed by Grossman and told the story of Hannah Senesh, a World War II era poet and diarist who parachuted behind enemy lines to rescue her mother and other Hungarian Jews. It won the audience award at 13 Jewish film festivals, was broadcast on PBS, nominated for a Primetime Emmy, and shortlisted for an Academy Award. [11] [12]
Grossman and Sophie Sartain’s Hava Nagila: The Movie was released in 2012. The film was produced by Marta Kauffman. The feature-length documentary traced the journey of the song, Hava Nagila, from the Ukraine to YouTube. Released theatrically and screened at 80 Jewish film festivals, Hava Nagila: The Movie was either opening or closing night at more than half of those festivals. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
Director Dyanna Taylor’s film about her grandmother, the photographer Dorothea Lange, Grab a Hunk of Lightning, aired on PBS's "American Masters" in 2014 and was produced by Grossman. [18] [19]
She directed Above and Beyond (2015) for producer Nancy Spielberg. [20] The feature-length documentary told the story of Jewish American World War II era pilots who volunteered to fight for Israel in its 1948 War of Independence, also establishing the Israeli Air Force. Interviews with pilots who flew these missions is one of the highlights of the film. [21] [22] [23] [24]
Grossman produced, wrote and directed a documentary about the secret archives of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The archive, known as Oyneg Shabbos, was assembled and hidden under the leadership of historian Emanuel Ringelblum. The film, called Who Will Write Our History? [25] is based on the book of the same name by historian Samuel Kassow of Trinity College in Connecticut. [26] Grossman optioned the rights to the book and worked with Executive Producer Nancy Spielberg to raise money for the film.
Who Will Write Our History was released in 2018 [27] to great acclaim. Featuring the voices of three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen and Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, the film was a New York Times Critic’s Pick in 2019. It played in over 50 film festivals around the world, including Berlinale, Festa del Cinema di Roma, Palm Springs International Film Fest and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. The film garnered numerous other awards on the festival circuit. On January 27, 2019, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the film was simultaneously screened on over 600 screens in 62 countries around the world. The film was also broadcast on NDR, Arte and the Discovery Channel in early 2020 and continues to be screened and discussed by community centers, organizations, museums and more and on college and high school campuses around the world.
Also in 2018, Grossman co-directed with Sophie Sartain the Netflix Original Documentary Seeing Allred, about women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, which premiered in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Along with producer Nancy Spielberg, Grossman is currently producing a documentary about famed photographer Roman Vishniac, directed by Laura Bialis. She is also collaborating with Sophie Sartain and Dr. Susannah Heschel on a feature documentary about her father, Abraham Joshua Heschel.
In 2020, Grossman received the Taube Jewish Peoplehood Award [28] . The award honors Jewish men and women who have worked to foster pride in Jewish identity and heritage for new generations, making a uniquely Jewish contribution to global culture.
In 2021, along with Caroline Libresco, Grossman launched Jewish Story Partners (JSP), a film funding organization with a mission to support filmmakers telling stories with Jewish themes. JSP was founded with lead funding from Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, the Maimonides Fund and the Jim Joseph Foundation.
| Year | Film | Credited As |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Live! From Death Row (TV Movie) | Production Manager |
| 2001 | From the Waist Down: Men, Women and Music (TV Mini Series) | Producer |
| 2005 | Fortune Files 2: By the Numbers (TV Documentary) | Co-Exec.Producer |
| 2010 | Native Century (TV Series) | Producer |
| 1983 | Sippie (Documentary Short) | Co-Producer/Director |
| 1995 | 500 Nations (TV Mini Series) | Co-Writer/Series Producer |
| 2003 | In the Footsteps of Jesus / The History Channel(TV Movie Documentary) | Producer/Writer |
| 2000 | The History of Sex and Rock and Roll/ VH1 (TV Series) | Producer/Writer |
| 2000 | In Search of History: The Man in the Iron Mask/History Channel (TV Series) | Producer/Writer |
| 2000 | Escape: True Stories of Suspense (TV Series) | Producer |
| 2002 | Special Report Las Vegas/ MSNBC (TV Movie Documentary) | Producer/Writer |
| 2003 | Women on Top/ AMC (TV Movie Documentary) | Producer |
| 1999 | Medal of Honor (TV Movie) | Series Producer |
| 1998 | The Rise of Christianity: The First 1000 Years/A&E (TV Movie) | Segment Producer/Writer |
| 1998 | Mysteries of the Bible: Judas/A&E(TV Series) | Writer |
| 1997 | Heroines of the Hebrew Bible/A&E(TV Series) | Director |
| 2005 | Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action (Documentary) | Producer/Director |
| 2008 | Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh (Documentary) | Producer/Director |
| 2012 | Hava Nagila: The Movie (Documentary) | Producer/Director |
| 2014 | Grab a Hunk of Lightning: Dorothea Lange (Documentary) | Producer |
| 2015 | Above and Beyond (Documentary) | Director |
| 2018 | Seeing Allred (Documentary) | Co-Director/Producer |
| 2018 | Who Will Write Our History (Documentary) | Director/Producer |
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director in history. He is the recipient of many accolades, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four Directors Guild of America Awards, as well as the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2006, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2009 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.
Hannah Szenes was a Hungarian Jewish poet and a Special Operations Executive (SOE) member. She was one of 37 Jewish SOE recruits from Mandate Palestine parachuted by the British into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist anti-Nazi forces and ultimately in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz.
Sippie Wallace was an American blues singer, pianist and songwriter. Her early career in tent shows gained her the billing "The Texas Nightingale". Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by her or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas. Her accompanists included Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams. Among the top female blues vocalists of her era, Wallace ranked with Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, and Bessie Smith.
"Hava Nagila" is a Jewish folk song. It is traditionally sung at celebrations, such as weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvas, and other festivities among the Jewish community. Written in 1918, it quickly spread through the Jewish diaspora.
Justine Shapiro is a South African-born American actress, filmmaker, writer, hostess and producer, who was one of several main hosts of the Pilot Productions travel/adventure series Globe Trekker.
Don Tourliev "Danny" Maseng is an Israeli-born performer. An actor, singer and writer, Maseng is known as a composer of contemporary Jewish Liturgical music. He currently leads MAKOM LA, a spiritual community in Los Angeles, California.
Stanley Earl Nelson Jr. is an American documentary filmmaker and a MacArthur Fellow known as a director, writer and producer of documentaries examining African-American history and experiences. He is a recipient of the 2013 National Humanities Medal from President Obama. He has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Aviva Kempner is a German-born American filmmaker. Her documentaries investigate non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and focus on the untold stories of Jewish people. She is most well known for The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.
Samuel D. Kassow is an American historian of the history of Ashkenazi Jewry.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney. The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Documentary. The film had its theatrical release in New York City on November 7, 2008. It had cumulative gross worldwide of $90,066.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 attending in 2016. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Al Reinert was an American journalist, film director, screenwriter and producer. He co-wrote the screenplays for the Ron Howard film Apollo 13 and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but is best known for directing and producing For All Mankind, an award-winning 1989 documentary about NASA's Apollo program. He died of lung cancer at his home in Wimberley, Texas on December 31, 2018.
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Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story is a 2010 American documentary film narrated by Academy Award-winner Dustin Hoffman, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ira Berkow, and directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Miller. It is about the connection and history between American Jews and baseball.
Crime After Crime is a 2011 award-winning documentary film directed by Yoav Potash about the case of Deborah Peagler, an incarcerated victim of domestic violence whose case was taken up by pro bono attorneys through The California Habeas Project.
Above and Beyond is a 2014 documentary film about Mahal, produced by Nancy Spielberg, the youngest sister of Steven Spielberg,, written by Sophie Sartain, and directed by Roberta Grossman.
Quezon's Game is a 2018 Philippine biographical drama film directed by Matthew Rosen. The film centers on Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon and his plan to shelter German and Austrian Jews in the Philippines who were fleeing Nazi Germany during the pre-World War II era.
Wendy's Shabbat is a 2018 documentary film directed and produced by Rachel Myers. It stars Roberta Mahler, Lou Silberman, Sharon Goodman, Gerri Gussman and Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2018 and Palm Springs International Film Festival 2018, and over 50 other film festivals world wide where it won Audience Choice Awards at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival 2019, Jewish & Israeli Film Festival 2019, Audience Choice Award Winner Gold Coast International Film Festival 2018. Wendy's Shabbat theatrically premiered at Leammle Theatre- Music Hall and qualified for 2018 Academy Awards. The film was critically appraised for its subject and depiction of documentary subjects featured in the film.
Nancy Spielberg is an American film producer who has produced multiple documentaries on Jewish and Israeli history. She is the second youngest sister of director and producer Steven Spielberg.
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