Greta Schiller

Directing

Greta Schiller

Born January 1, 1954 · Detroit, Michigan, USA (age 72)

Greta Schiller is a film director and producer, known as an early pioneer of LGBTQ and feminist filmmaking. She is best known for her 1984 documentary Before Stonewall: Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community. In 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. She and her partner Andrea Weiss are cof…

Known For

Born in FlamesBorn in Flames · 1983
Born in Flames
6.11983
MovieDramaScience Fiction
In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.
Before StonewallBefore Stonewall · 1984
Before Stonewall
6.51984
MovieDocumentaryHistory
New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.
Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' WomenTiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women · 1989
Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women
3.31989
MovieDocumentaryMusic
This profile of storied trumpeter of jazz, Tiny Davis, and her cohort pianist-drummer, Ruby Lucas, is an amalgam of artifacts about the two women, accompanied with poetry by Cheryl Clarke.
Age of DissentAge of Dissent · 1994
Age of Dissent
1994
MovieDocumentary
Age of Dissent captures the yearlong battle to change British legislation about the gay age of consent. It includes a visit to Russia, where homosexuality was recently legalized.
Woman of the WolfWoman of the Wolf · 1994
Woman of the Wolf
8.01994
MovieTV MovieFantasy
This fairy-tale-like drama, based on a 1904 short story by American poet and feminist author Renée Vivien, tells two opposing versions of the same narrative: one told verbally by Pierre Lenoir, a male narrator at a Victorian dinner party; the other told visually through the behavior of an unnamed woman who meets him on a fantasy cargo boat. The intercutting of the two stories creates a tension between the different world views of the woman and the man.
Bones of ContentionBones of Contention · 2018
Bones of Contention
6.02018
MovieHistoryDocumentary
A history of the political and social repression carried out by the ruthless regime of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco between 1936 and 1975 that focuses on the lives of gays and lesbians during those dark years and the death of the Spanish gay poet Federico García Lorca.
Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann StoryEscape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story · 2001
Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story
4.82001
MovieDocumentaryDrama
This documentary contains dramatized episodes about the lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant children of German writer Thomas Mann.
Paris Was a WomanParis Was a Woman · 1996
Paris Was a Woman
6.41996
MovieDocumentary
Women (many of them lesbian) artists, writers, photographers, designers, and adventurers settled in Paris between the wars. They embraced France, some developed an ex-pat culture, and most cherished a way of life quite different than the one left behind.

Filmography

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The Five DemandsThe Five Demands · 2023
The Five Demands
2023
MovieDocumentary
In April 1969, a small group of Black and Puerto Rican students shut down the City College of New York, an elite public university located right in the heart of Harlem. Fueled by the revolutionary fervor sweeping the nation, the strike soon turned into an uprising, leading to the extended occupation of the campus, classes being canceled, students being arrested, and the resignation of the college president. Through archival footage and modern-day interviews, we follow the students’ struggle against the institutional racism that, for over a century, had shut out people of color from this and other public universities. The Five Demands revisits the untold story of this explosive student takeover, and proves that a handful of ordinary citizens can band together to take action and effect meaningful change.

Director

Love LettersLove Letters · 2024
Love Letters
2024
MovieDocumentary
In the winter of 1977, Liz left her husband and four small children at home in Australia and came to New York City on a Fulbright award. There she met Kate, a paradigm-shifting feminist scholar, and they fell in love at first sight. Back then, it was a given that any lesbian mother was deemed unfit to raise her own children. But Liz’s newfound passion and self-discovery gave her the courage to fight for her kids, and for herself. In “Love Letters,” the traditional patriarchal values of the era, in which women and children were seen as possessions of men, collide head on with the newly energized, audacious lesbian feminist movement. The highly charged custody case uses courtroom line-drawing animation and verbatim testimony to tell a dramatic story of social ostracism and personal triumph. This is the story of a blazing lesbian love affair, begun in the revolutionary feminist ferment of 1970’s New York City and still going strong almost 50 years later.

Director