At Home in Utopia

Award-winning filmmaker Michal Goldman’s documentaries look at how people define and express the urgent issues of their times through the way they live their lives. She produces, writes, and edits her films, which include A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden, the first film to document the revival of klezmer music; Umm Kulthum, A Voice Like Egypt, about the diva of Arabic song and her country; and Epiphany in Progress, about the first year in an inner-city Episcopal school. Goldman is founder and president emerita of Filmmakers Collaborative, and founder of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.

Ellen Brodsky began filmmaking in 1995 after a 10-year career in education and public health. She co-directed the award-winning short Dental Farmer and directed Health is Academic, a 15-minute short about school health programs introduced by the U.S. Surgeon General. She has also produced short films about daycare and public education. In 2008, she worked as the media consultant for the LEF Foundation’s Moving Image Fund. Outside of film, Brodsky has led a national training center on HIV prevention for the CDC, directed sexuality education programs in more than 40 school districts, taught English in the Congo, and worked as a teaching fellow at Harvard University for classes on sexuality and positive psychology.