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I was born and raised in Kenya. My Polish/Romanian
parents had settled there after fleeing Hitler in 1939.
I attended schools in Kenya, earning My “O”
and “A” Levels at the Kenya Girls’ High
School in Nairobi, and went on to earn a B. Sc. in zoology,
botany and chemistry at the University of Nairobi in 1968.
While in Kenya, my main interests were in theater, film
and radio, and I was involved in many local productions
as an actress or on the production side. From the age
of 16, I contributed feature articles to Kenya’s
main newspaper, the East African Standard and also worked
free-lance for Kenya’s radio station, the Voice
Of Kenya, dramatizing and acting in radio plays.
After graduating from the
University of Nairobi in 1968, I attended Bristol
University, UK, from 1969 - 1970, where I earned a
postgraduate Diploma in Film Technology and Theatre History.
This entailed all aspects of 16mm and 35mm film-making,
including camera, sound recording and editing. I was closely
involved with productions at the renowned Bristol Old
Vic and with the BBC’s Natural History branch in
Bristol. During this period, I was involved in several
award-winning student films as producer, camera and/or
sound technician/editor. After graduation, I worked in
London as Production Assistant for Maya Film Productions
– an award-winning independent film company run
by England’s renowned producer, Barney
Platts-Mills..
In 1970, I moved to Hamburg, Germany, to work for the
film and television production company, Windrose-Dumont-Time,
on a series of 16 films on animal behavior. I worked closely
with scientific experts for each film, translating their
data into layman’s terms, and wrote the scripts
for six of the films, all of which were broadcast world-wide.
I also wrote and produced Chefa Jila, a documentary on
an Ethiopian village, which was broadcast on German television
in July, 1974. Another product of this period was
PowerPlay, a black-and-white experimental film illustrating
the futility of ambitions for power, which was screened
in several Hamburg film theaters and was later included
in Alwaysi’s web-based Throwback Film Festival in
2002.
I left the film industry because of union limitations
both in the U.K. and in Germany. From 1972 - 1974, I worked
as PR Manager for Polydor records in Hamburg, taking visiting
music groups like Eric Clapton, Slade, and James Brown on tour throughout Germany. For the 12 years
that I lived in Hamburg, I was also a free-lance contributor
to countless newspapers, magazines and radio shows, writing
(in German) on everything from pop to politics, poetry
to penguins. I frequently read my own dramatized works
of fiction in Hamburg’s many literary venues.
In 1982, I moved to the United States, where I continued
to work as a journalist and to follow another calling
as a teacher. In 1992, I graduated from Bank
Street College of Education in Manhattan with a Masters
Degree in Education and since then, I have taught creative
non-fiction and fiction writing to students of all ages
in schools throughout Long Island and the Triborough district.
For seven years, I was Professor of Writing and the Writing
Program Coordinator at Friends World Program, an international
college based in Southampton. Although that school is
now called Global
College and affiliated with Long Island University
in Brooklyn, I still teach the graduating students’
Senior Thesis Seminar every spring.
I have also taught many courses in professional development
for teachers. The most recent was for Primary
Source in Boston in October, 2007, where I ran a workshop
on East African history that included curriculum development
on this topic for all grades. I have also run several
teachers’ workshops on curriculum development, including
one at Bank Street College of Education titled Including
Indigenous People in the Social Studies Curriculum and
several for various high schools on Writing Across the
Curriculum; and Curriculum Development in Any Content
Area. Most recently, I ran the latter course at the United
States International University in Nairobi, Kenya
(2006) for a group of 38 teachers in all faculties, including
math, political science, geography and environmental studies.
I have also conducted various workshops for teachers for
BOCES (Board Of Cooperative Educational Services) on Long
Island, and have worked in many high schools to enhance
their African studies curriculum.
I have authored several books for the educational market,
among them an award-winning six-part series titled African
Kingdoms of the Past (Simon & Schuster/Dillon
Press, 1992 - 1996), as well as The
Ancient Hebrews and Isabel and
Ferdinand in Fifteenth Century Spain (Benchmark Books,
1995 and 1996). I have published poetry in various small
presses as well as Yellow Dog Dreaming
(Wiseacre Press, 1995), a collection of illustrated short
stories about white women in Africa. My account of growing up in Kenya, titled Nusu Nusu, was published in the 2007 issue of The Global City Review.
In recent years, I have resumed film-making. In 2002, I completed a 15mn 16mm black-and-white film titled Surrender which was shot on Long Island and selected for the 2002 Independent Film Project (IFP) market where it was picked up by the Independent Film Channel and broadcast frequently for three years. In January/February of 2004, I traveled around southern India and produced a “documentary travelogue” titled India - And Other Thoughts as a break-through model for Windows Movie-Maker. In 2005, I made a short documentary film for the Earthwatch Samburu Research Initiative in northern Kenya, which was my way of giving back something to the country I love so much. From 1990 to 2006, I have been filming my mother and my family for a documentary titled Riding The Equator which concerns my Jewish parents’ extraordinary life and work in Kenya and which will go into post-production in 2008. From 2005 to 2008, I produced and shot a documentary titled Walking With Life: Human Rights, Islam and Revolution in Senegal, about the extraordinary impact of human rights education in Senegal, which I am now screening, submitting to festivals and distributing. During 2007, I shot, wrote and produced The Swahili Beat, an upbeat look at the fascinating history of East Africa’s Islamic coast, packed with indigenous music and dance and geared towards the educational market. Surrender, India - and Other Thoughts, and Powerplay are available via Renew Media/Tribeca Film Institute on Amazon.com. The Swahili Beat is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources.
Next on my film production agenda is a documentary about Suzanne - a mentally handicapped adult who happens to be an amazing actress.
My feature-length script titled Exposed – a post-9/11 thriller set in the Hamptons, is in its final draft and will then be entered into the festival and competitive circle.
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