Starting from a fictional recreation of Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment, ZENITH plunges into exploring multifaceted dimensions of the human experience. The film follows two parallel stories – of father and son – now, and 40 years into the future. Searching for the same elusive conspiracy, both father and son find no answers; instead, their journeys unravel their lives and force them to look deep and hard at themselves and their surroundings. In the end, they are both confronted with the same Faustian bargain – but each one chooses a very different path.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times review by Vincenty Canby, published Sept. 21, 1986:

“Alfred Hitchock, who never took kindly to suggestions from actors in his employ, once said of Marlene Dietrich: ‘She’s a professional.’

“He then added: ‘She’s a professional actress, a professional wardrober, a professional lighting technician…’

“Without wasting time on false modesty, Miss Dietrich might agree. In MARLENE, Maximilian Schell’s moving, unconventional documentary on Dietrich’s life, career and anxieties, it’s apparent that the remarkably durable performer is still very much in charge of things, or, at least, that she was, in September 1982 when Mr. Schell traveled to Paris to interview her for the film.

“Miss Dietrich agreed to submit to audio interviews, but not to be photographed. She wants the world to remember not the virtual recluse she’s become, but the legend she has been almost from the start of her career. The film that came out of this sometimes quarrelsome collaboration is, I suspect, a far more lively, haunted likeness than any ordinary film portrait would be… [MARLENE] is a portrait of a remarkably strong-willed woman, stage-managing her career right up to the bitter end. It’s also an examination of the very particular, possibly bitter legacy of movie stardom.”

Description from Sundance 2010 catalogue:

On an unassuming corner in Fort Pierce, Florida, it’s easy to miss the insidious war that’s raging. But on each side of 12TH AND DELAWARE, soldiers stand locked in a passionate battle. On one side of the street sits an abortion clinic. On the other, a pro-life outfit often mistaken for the clinic it seeks to shut down.

Using skillful cinema-vérité observation that allows us to draw our own conclusions, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, the directors of Jesus Camp, expose the molten core of America’s most intractable conflict. As the pro-life volunteers paint a terrifying portrait of abortion to their clients, across the street, the staff members at the clinic fear for their doctors’ lives and fiercely protect the right of their clients to choose. Shot in the year when abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his church, the film makes these fears palpable. Meanwhile, women in need become pawns in a vicious ideological war with no end in sight.

Profiled in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces in Independent Film as an “up-and-comer poised to shape the next generation of independent film”, Rebecca Richman Cohen won Special Jury at SXSW and the Cinereach Award at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival with her directorial debut WAR DON DON.

In the heart of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, United Nations soldiers guard a heavily fortified building known as the “special court.” Inside, Issa Sesay awaits his trial. Prosecutors say Sesay is a war criminal, guilty of crimes against humanity. His defenders say he is a reluctant fighter who protected civilians and played a crucial role in bringing peace to the country.

WAR DON DON tells the story of a sensational trial with unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims and, from behind bars, Sesay himself. In Krio, war don don means “the war is over,” and although today Sierra Leone is at peace, the specter of war remains ever-present. Can the trial of one man uncover the truth of a traumatic past? International justice is on trial for the world to see.

“This is highly-nuanced, thought-provoking filmmaking, providing profound sustenance for both the mind, the conscience and the heart.” – Pamela Cohn, Still In Motion

In presenting WO AI NI MOMMY with the Sterling Award for Best US Feature this past June, the jury at Silverdocs noted: “The film dives so deeply into its story that the filmmaker’s hands disappear. She creates a profound connection between her characters and the story she’s telling. Above all, she dares to leave us with questions to which there are no easy answers.”

From 2000-2008, China was the leading country for U.S. international adoptions. There are now approximately 70,000 Chinese children being raised in the United States. Wo Ai Ni Mommy explores what happens when an older Chinese girl is adopted into an American family. This film reveals the complicated gains and losses that are an inherent aspect of international, transracial adoption.

In 2007 Donna and Jeff Sadowsky of Long Island, New York submitted their dossier to adopt eight-year old Fang Sui Yong from Guangzhou, China. From the very first moment Sui Yong meets her new mother, Donna, we get a real sense of the emotional confusion and loss Sui Yong experiences, as adoption workers translate their first words of communication. This day will change Sui Yong’s life, forever. Language, habits, food, everything she knows will never be the same. Her new life in America is filled with happiness and confusion. As she struggles to survive in this new world, we witness her transform into a lively, outspoken American. Sui Yong has become someone neither she nor Donna could have imagined. In a sense, she’s the same girl Donna met in Guangzhou all those months ago – and yet she’s utterly different.

In a state with the highest female incarceration rate in the country, these women share common experiences such as broken homes, drug abuse and alienation from their children. From 1940 – 2008, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary held an annual ‘Prison Rodeo’. Part Wild West show and part coliseum-esque spectacle, it was one of the last of its kind – a relic of the American penal system. Prisoners compete on wild-broncs and bucking bulls, risking life-long injuries. For inmates like Danny Liles, a 14-year veteran of the rodeo, the chance to battle livestock offers a brief respite from prison life. Within this strange arena the prisoners become the heroes while the public and guards applaud.