Did you know that Prof. Rosemarie Reed (English) is a filmmaker? Her films are part of the library’s online film collection, Kanopy. We asked Prof. Reed to tell us more about her career as a filmmaker:
I have made six films for the Public Broadcasting System, better known as PBS. Two of my films focus on women scientists. One was the discoverer of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner. Her discovery in 1938, in Nazi Germany, with Otto Hahn, made it possible for the first atomic bomb to be built. Because she was a Jew and in exile, she was not given the credit she deserved, costing Meitner the Nobel Prize. The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn
My second film was on the life of Irene Joliot Curie, daughter of Irene Curie and Pierre Curie. She, as her mother, won a Nobel Prize. During World War II, Joliot-Curie and her husband, Frederic Joliot-Curie, hid the supply of radium they had amassed from the Nazis, who needed it to build their own nuclear bomb, but in a caper that would make James Bond proud, they hid the radium, denying the Nazis their covered prize. Out from the Shadows: The Story of Irene Joliot Curie and Frederic Joliot-Curie
In Germany, where I lived for a few years, I worked at a women’s concentration camp giving tours to college students. During that time, I decided to make a film on the largest concentration camp that the Nazis built for women. Where Birds Never Sang
I also produced and directed a trilogy on the former Soviet Union, exploring its past and its present up to the Coup against Mikhail Gorbachev.
- Widow of the Revolution: The Story of Anna Larina
- Conversations with Gorbachev
- Russia Betrayed: Voices of the Opposition
I am presently working on two films, Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing and Playing in the FM Band: The Life of Steve Post.
For further information, please visit my website: www.filmsforthought.com
2-7-17
