Film Forum

Rosemarie Reed began her career in radio at WBAI, starting as a volunteer and following as a programmer, development director and finally as general manager. After five years at WBAI, she became an independent radio producer, receiving numerous grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to produce dramatic readings based upon little known books concerning human rights issues. After meeting Gene Kat from CPB and discussing an idea for a documentary film on the presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev, she was awarded a CPB grant and began filming in Moscow. CONVERSATIONS WITH GORBACHEV was the result, and it led to two other documentaries on Russia: WIDOW OF THE REVOLUTION: THE ANNA LARINA STORY; and RUSSIA BETRAYED? VOICES OF THE OPPOSITION. Upon completing this series, she turned her attention to women in science. With support from The National Science Foundation and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, she relocated for a year from New York to Berlin, Germany to begin research and principal photography for THE PATH TO NUCLEAR FISSION: THE STORY OF LISE MEITNER AND OTTO HAHN, and OUT FROM THE SHADOWS: THE STORY OF IRENE JOLIOT-CURIE AND FREDERIC JOLIOT-CURIE. After the completion of these films, Reed began work on WHERE BIRDS NEVER SANG: THE RAVENSBRUECK AND SACHSENHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMPS. Currently in post-production is Reed’s FORGETTING THE MANY: THE ROYAL PARDON OF ALAN TURING, which addresses the United Kingdom’s anti-gay laws that originated in the time of King Henry the VIII, and which still exist today in the United Kingdom and in Nigeria (once a commonwealth of the United Kingdom).

Caryl Ratner is a documentary film producer and a former radio news broadcast journalist who worked as a writer-producer-host of live radio and investigative documentaries. She was one of the innovators of feminist issues programming on WBAI. In fact, it was Steve Post who first put Ratner on the air at WBAI in 1969. More recently, she is now “in recovery” as a former property management professional. Ratner was an executive producer of the 2016 award-winning documentary film RADIO UNNAMEABLE (Lost Footage Films), the story of legendary live radio innovator and pioneer Bob Fass. She is currently executive producer of two documentary films by On the Road Productions International, Inc.: PLAYING IN THE FM BAND: THE STEVE POST STORY; and the still-in-production FORGETTING THE MANY: THE ROYAL PARDON OF ALAN TURING.

Janet Coleman has been heard on WBAI since 1967 when she first played Emily Ann Andrews on Poisoned Arts, David Dozer’s long-running radio comedy series. The two have since created numerous prize-winning radio spots and such radio programs for WBAI and Pacifica as The Atlantica Radio Empire, The Christmas Coup Comedy Players (C.C.C.P.): The Monthly Laughing Nightmare, Mushroom Cloud Theater, and currently, the weekly arts salon Cat Radio Café. As WBAI Arts Director, she produced the annual Radio Bloomsday and Howl: The 50th Anniversary with Ron Collins and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. She is the author of The Compass: The Improvisational Theater That Revolutionized American Comedy and (with the late poet Al Young) Mingus/Mingus: Two Memoirs, just re-published by Limelight Editions as a Charles Mingus Centennial Edition. These days she produces a podcast, The Hour of Lateral Thinking, and is writing a book about Viola Spolin, the High Priestess and creator of Theater Games.

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