Episode 111: Jay Rosenblatt, Bullying Awareness
Jay Rosenblatt
In this episode, Karen speaks with Jay Rosenblatt, a San Francisco filmmaker who hails from Brooklyn, New York. Jay is a filmmaker responsible for the Oscar-nominated documentary “When We Were Bullies,” wherein Jay tracks down his fifth-grade class, and teacher, to examine their memories of a bullying incident that occurred over 50 years ago. Jay is here to share the story behind his film.
Jay Rosenblatt is an internationally recognized artist and an Academy Award® nominated filmmaker who has completed over thirty films. His work explores our emotional and psychological cores. They are personal in their content yet universal in their appeal.
Jay’s films have received over 100 awards and have screened throughout the world. A selection of his films had theatrical runs at the Film Forum in New York and at theaters around the country. In October 2010, he had a feature length program of recent work screen for a week at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Nine of his films have been at the Sundance Film Festival, 9 of his films have screened at IDFA and several of his films have shown on HBO/Cinemax, PBS and the Sundance Channel. Articles about his work have appeared in the Sunday NY Times Arts & Leisure section, the LA Times, the NY Times, Filmmaker magazine and the Village Voice.
Jay is a recipient of a Guggenheim, USA Artists and a Rockefeller Fellowship. He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2002 and served on the Executive Committee of the Documentary Branch for nine years.
Jay is originally from New York and has lived in San Francisco for many years. He was a film and video production instructor from 1989 – 2010 at various film schools in the Bay Area, including Stanford University, S.F. State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute. He is currently the Program Director of the Jewish Film Institute (presenters of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival). He has a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and, in a former life, worked as a therapist.
Filmography
* How Do You Measure A Year? (2021)
* When We Were Bullies (2021)
* SACRED VERY SCARED (2017)
* The Kodachrome Elegies (2017)
* When You Awake (2016)
* A Long Way From Home (2015)
* The Claustrum (2014)
* Inquire Within (2012)
* The D Train (2011)
* The Darkness of Day (2009)
* Four Questions for a Rabbi (2008)
* Beginning Filmmaking (2008)
* I Just Wanted To Be Somebody (2006)
* Afraid So (2006)
* Phantom Limb (2005)
* I’m Charlie Chaplin (2005)
* I Like It A Lot (2004)
* I Used To Be A Filmmaker (2003)
* Friend Good (2003)
* Prayer (2002)
* Underground Zero (2002) co-producer
* Decidi! (2002) co-directed with Stephanie Rapp
* Worm (2001) co-directed with Caveh Zahedi
* Nine Lives: The Eternal Moment of Now (2001)
* King of the Jews (2000)
* RESTRICTED (1999)
* drop (1999) co-directed with Dina Ciraulo
* a pregnant moment (1999) co-directed with Jennifer Frame
* Human Remains (1998)
* Period Piece (1996) co-directed with Jennifer Frame
* The Smell of Burning Ants (1994)
* Short Of Breath (1990)
* Brain In The Desert (1990) co-directed with Jennifer Frame
* Paris X 2 (1988)
* Blood Test (1985)
* Doubt (1981)